10-K: Annual report pursuant to Section 13 and 15(d)
Published on August 13, 2020
UNITED STATES
SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
Washington, D.C. 20549
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Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act:
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Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(g) of the Act
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Indicate by check mark if the registrant is a well-known seasoned issuer, as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act. Yes No ¨
Indicate by check mark if the registrant is not required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or 15(d) of the Act. Yes ¨ No
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Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has submitted electronically every Interactive Data File required to be submitted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T (§ 232.405 of this chapter) during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to submit such files). Yes No ¨
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer, a smaller reporting company or an emerging growth company. See the definitions of “
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If an emerging growth company, indicate by check mark if the registrant has elected not to use the extended transition period for complying with any new or revised financial accounting standards provided pursuant to Section 13(a) of the Exchange Act. ¨
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act). Yes ¨ No
The aggregate market value of the voting and non-voting common equity held by non-affiliates of registrant as of December 31, 2019 (the last business day of the registrant’s most recently completed second fiscal quarter), computed by reference to the closing sale price of such stock on the New York Stock Exchange, was $
At August 7, 2020, registrant had
Portions of the registrant’s definitive Proxy Statement to be delivered to stockholders in connection with the registrant’s 2020 Annual Meeting of Stockholders, to be filed subsequent to the date hereof, are incorporated by reference into Part III of this report.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
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1 |
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Part I |
Item 1 |
1 |
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Item 1A |
18 |
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Item 1B |
34 |
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Item 2 |
34 |
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Item 3 |
34 |
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Item 4 |
34 |
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Part II |
Item 5 |
35 |
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Item 6 |
37 |
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Item 7 |
Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations |
38 |
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Item 7A |
Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures About Market and Business Risks |
48 |
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Item 8 |
50 |
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Item 9 |
Changes in and Disagreements with Accountants on Accounting and Financial Disclosure |
82 |
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Item 9A |
82 |
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Item 9B |
86 |
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Part III |
Item 10 |
87 |
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Item 11 |
87 |
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Item 12 |
Security Ownership of Certain Beneficial Owners and Management and Related Stockholder Matters |
87 |
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Item 13 |
Certain Relationships and Related Transactions, and Director Independence |
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Item 14 |
87 |
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Part IV |
Item 15 |
88 |
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Item 16 |
89 |
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90 |
As used in this 10-K, the terms “we”, “us”, “our” and “the Company” refer to ResMed Inc., a Delaware corporation, and its subsidiaries, on a consolidated basis, unless otherwise stated.
PART I
Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements
This report contains or may contain certain forward-looking statements and information that are based on the beliefs of our management as well as estimates and assumptions made by, and information currently available to, our management. All statements other than statements regarding historical facts are forward-looking statements. The words “believe,” “expect,” “intend,” “anticipate,” “will continue,” “will,” “estimate,” “plan,” “future” and other similar expressions, and negative statements of such expressions, generally identify forward-looking statements, including, in particular, statements regarding expectations of future revenue or earnings, expenses, new product development, new product launches, new markets for our products, litigation, and tax outlook. These forward-looking statements are made in accordance with the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. You are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements reflect the views of our management at the time the statements are made and are subject to a number of risks, uncertainties, estimates and assumptions, including, without limitation, and in addition to those identified in the text surrounding such statements, those identified in Item 1A “Risk Factors” and elsewhere in this report.
In addition, important factors to consider in evaluating such forward-looking statements include changes or developments in healthcare reform, social, economic, market, legal or regulatory circumstances, including the impact of public health crises such as the novel strain of coronavirus (COVID-19) that has spread globally; changes in our business or growth strategy or an inability to execute our strategy due to changes in our industry or the economy generally, the emergence of new or growing competitors, the actions or omissions of third parties, including suppliers, customers, competitors and governmental authorities, and various other factors. If any one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or underlying estimates or assumptions prove incorrect, actual results may vary significantly from those expressed in our forward-looking statements, and there can be no assurance that the forward-looking statements contained in this report will in fact occur.
ITEM 1 BUSINESS
General
We are a global leader in digital health and cloud-connected medical devices. We design innovative solutions to treat and keep people out of the hospital, empowering them to live healthier, higher-quality lives. Our digital health technologies and cloud-connected medical devices transform care for people with sleep apnea, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD, and other chronic diseases. Our comprehensive out-of-hospital software platforms support the professionals and caregivers who help people stay healthy in the home or care setting of their choice. By enabling better care, our products improve quality of life, reduce the impact of chronic disease, and lower costs for consumers and healthcare systems.
Following our formation in 1989, we commercialized a treatment for obstructive sleep apnea, or OSA. This treatment, nasal continuous positive airway pressure, or CPAP, was the first successful noninvasive treatment for OSA. CPAP systems deliver pressurized air, typically through a nasal mask, to prevent collapse of the upper airway during sleep.
Since the development of CPAP, we have expanded our business by developing or acquiring a number of innovative products and solutions for a broad range of respiratory disorders including technologies to be applied in medical and consumer products, ventilation devices, diagnostic products, mask systems for use in the hospital and home, headgear and other accessories, dental devices, portable oxygen concentrators, or POCs, and cloud-based software informatics solutions to manage patient outcomes and customer and provider business processes. Today, we offer a comprehensive digital solution suite for patients with COPD, including those using inhalers or supplemental oxygen as well as non-invasive or invasive ventilation. We also provide management software to agencies providing out-of-hospital care, including home medical equipment, or HME, home health and hospice, skilled nursing, life plan community and senior living, and private duty services. Our growth has been fueled by geographic expansion, our research and product development efforts, acquisitions and an increasing awareness of sleep apnea and respiratory conditions like COPD as significant health concerns. We are also a leading provider of cloud-based software health applications and devices designed to provide connected care, improving patient outcomes and efficiencies for healthcare providers. These tools are designed to enable clinicians to manage more patients efficiently and effectively, as well as enable and encourage patients’ long-term adherence to and satisfaction with their therapy.
We employ approximately 7,800 people and sell our products in approximately 140 countries through a combination of wholly owned subsidiaries and independent distributors.
Our web site address is www.resmed.com. Information contained on our website is not part of or incorporated into this report. We make our periodic reports, together with any amendments, available on our website, free of charge, as soon as reasonably practicable after we electronically file or furnish the reports with the Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC. The SEC maintains an internet site, www.sec.gov, which contains reports, proxy and information statements, and other information regarding issuers that file electronically with the SEC.
Corporate History
ResMed Inc., a Delaware corporation, was formed in March 1994 as the ultimate holding company for our operating subsidiaries. In June 1995, we completed an initial public offering of common stock and our common stock began trading on the NASDAQ National Market. In September 1999, we transferred our principal listing to the New York Stock Exchange, or NYSE, trading under the ticker symbol “RMD”. In November 1999, we established a secondary listing of our common stock via Chess Depositary Instruments, or CDIs, on the Australian Stock Exchange (now known as the Australian Securities Exchange), or ASX, also under the symbol “RMD”. Ten CDIs on the ASX represent one share of our common stock on the NYSE.
Our Australian subsidiary, ResMed Holdings Limited, was originally organized in 1989 by Dr. Peter Farrell to acquire from Baxter Center for Medical Research Pty Limited, or Baxter, the rights to certain technology relating to CPAP treatment as well as Baxter’s existing CPAP device business. Baxter acquired the rights to the technology in 1987, and sold CPAP devices in Australia from 1988 until our acquisition of the business.
Since formation we have acquired a number of businesses, including distributors, suppliers, developers of medical equipment and related technologies and software solution providers.
Segment Information
We operate in two segments, which are the Sleep and Respiratory Care segment and the software as a service, or SaaS, segment. See Note 15 – Segment Information of the Notes to Financial Statements (Part II, Item 8) for financial information regarding segment reporting. Financial information about our revenues from and assets located in foreign countries is also included in the notes to our consolidated financial statements.
The Market
We are focused on the sleep and related respiratory care markets, both of which we believe are globally underpenetrated markets, and where we believe our products can improve patient outcomes, create efficiencies for our customers, help physicians and providers better manage chronic disease and reduce overall healthcare system costs. Additionally, our software solutions are focused on the out-of-hospital care market, which we believe is fragmented and underserved and where we see significant opportunity to transform and significantly improve out-of-hospital healthcare through a strategy of enabling better patient care, improving clinical decision support, and driving interoperability across out-of-hospital care settings.
Sleep and Respiratory Care
Sleep
Sleep is a complex neurological process that includes two distinct states: rapid eye movement, or REM, sleep and non-rapid eye movement, or non-REM, sleep. REM sleep, which is about 20-25% of total sleep experienced by adults, is characterized by a high level of brain activity, bursts of rapid eye movement, increased heart and respiration rates, and paralysis of many muscles. Non-REM sleep is subdivided into four stages that generally parallel sleep depth; stage 1 is the lightest and stage 4 is the deepest.
The upper airway has no rigid support and is held open by active contraction of upper airway muscles. Normally, during REM sleep and deeper levels of non-REM sleep, upper airway muscles relax and the airway narrows. Individuals with narrow upper airways or poor muscle tone are prone to temporary collapses of the upper airway during sleep, called apneas, and to near closures of the upper airway called hypopneas. These breathing events result in a lowering of blood oxygen concentration, causing the central nervous system to react to the lack of oxygen or increased carbon dioxide and signaling the body to respond. Typically, the individual subconsciously arouses from sleep, causing the throat muscles to contract, opening the airway. After a few gasping breaths, blood oxygen levels increase and the individual can resume a deeper sleep until the cycle repeats itself. Sufferers of OSA typically experience ten or more such cycles per hour. While these awakenings greatly impair the quality of sleep, the individual is not normally aware of these disruptions. In addition, OSA has been recognized as a cause of hypertension and a significant comorbidity for heart disease, stroke and diabetes.
A long-term epidemiology study published in 2013 estimated that 26% of adults age 30-70 have some form of obstructive sleep apnea. Another study published in 2019 estimated that mild to severe OSA impacts more than 936 million people worldwide, including 54 million Americans. Of those impacted, it was estimated that more than 424 million would have moderate to severe sleep apnea. Despite the high prevalence of OSA, there is a general lack of awareness of OSA among both the medical community and the general public. It is estimated that less than 20% of those with OSA have been diagnosed or treated. Many healthcare professionals are often unable to diagnose OSA because they are unaware that such non-specific symptoms as excessive daytime sleepiness, snoring, hypertension and irritability are characteristic of OSA.
While sleep apnea has been diagnosed in a broad cross-section of the population, until recently, it has typically been diagnosed among middle-aged men who are obese. However, we believe the importance of sleep apnea in women is increasingly being recognized, with nearly 40% of new PAP patients being female. A strong association has been discovered between sleep apnea and a number of cardiovascular and metabolic diseases. Studies have shown that sleep apnea is present in approximately 83% of patients with drug-resistant hypertension, approximately 77% of patients with obesity, approximately 76% of patients with chronic heart failure and approximately 72% of patients with type 2 diabetes.
Sleep-Disordered Breathing and Obstructive Sleep Apnea. Sleep-disordered breathing encompasses all disease processes that cause abnormal breathing patterns during sleep. Manifestations include OSA, central sleep apnea, or CSA, and hypoventilation syndromes that occur during sleep. Hypoventilation syndromes are generally associated with obesity, chronic obstructive lung disease and neuromuscular disease. OSA is the most common form of SDB.
Sleep fragmentation and the loss of the deeper levels of sleep caused by OSA can lead to excessive daytime sleepiness, reduced cognitive function, including memory loss and lack of concentration, depression and irritability. OSA sufferers also experience an increase in heart rate and an elevation of blood pressure during the cycle of apneas. Several studies indicate that the oxygen desaturation, increased heart rate and elevated blood pressure caused by OSA may be associated with increased risk of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality due to angina, stroke and heart attack. Patients with OSA have been shown to have impaired daytime performance in a variety of cognitive functions including problem solving, response speed and visual motor coordination, and studies have linked OSA to increased occurrences of traffic and workplace accidents.
Generally, an individual seeking treatment for the symptoms of OSA is referred by a general practitioner to a sleep specialist for further evaluation. The diagnosis of OSA typically requires monitoring the patient during sleep at either a sleep clinic or the patient’s home. During overnight testing, respiratory parameters and sleep patterns may be monitored, along with other vital signs such as heart rate and blood oxygen levels. Simpler tests, using devices such as our ApneaLink Air, or our automatic positive airway pressure devices, monitor airflow during sleep, and use computer programs to analyze airflow patterns. These tests allow sleep clinicians to detect any sleep disturbances such as apneas, hypopneas or subconscious awakenings.
Before 1981, the primary treatment for OSA was a tracheotomy, a surgical procedure to create a hole in the patient’s windpipe. Alternative surgical treatments have involved either uvulopalatopharyngoplasty, or UPPP, in which surgery is performed on the upper airway to remove excess tissue and to streamline the shape of the airway or implanting a device to add support to the soft palate. UPPP alone has a poor success rate; however, when performed in conjunction with multi-stage upper airway surgical procedures, a greater success rate has been claimed. These combined procedures, performed by highly specialized surgeons, are expensive and involve prolonged and often painful recovery periods. Surgical treatments are not considered first line therapy for OSA. Other alternative treatments available today include nasal surgery, mandibular advancement surgery, dental appliances, palatal implants, somnoplasty, nasal devices and electrical stimulation of the nerves or muscles. Alternative pharmaceutical therapy treatments are reported to be under development.
A variety of devices are marketed for the treatment of OSA. Most are only partially effective, but CPAP is a reliable treatment for all severities of OSA and is considered first-line therapy. Use of mandibular advancement devices is increasing as a second-line option in patients unable to use CPAP or those with mild OSA. These devices cause the mandible and tongue to be pulled forward and improve the dimensions of the upper airway. CPAP is a non-invasive means of treating OSA. CPAP was first used as a treatment for OSA in 1980 by Dr. Colin Sullivan, the past Chairman of our Medical Advisory Board and was commercialized for treatment of OSA in the United States in the mid-1980s. During CPAP treatment, a patient sleeps with a nasal interface connected to a small portable air device that delivers room air at a positive pressure. The patient breathes in air from the device and breathes out through an exhaust port in the interface. Continuous air pressure applied in this manner acts as a pneumatic splint to keep the upper airway open and unobstructed. Interfaces include nasal masks and nasal pillows. Sometimes, when a patient leaks air through their mouth, a full-face mask may need to be used, rather than a nasal interface.
CPAP is not a cure and, therefore, must be used on a nightly basis as long as treatment is required. Patient compliance has been a major factor in the efficacy of CPAP treatment. Early generations of CPAP units provided limited patient comfort and convenience. Patients experienced soreness from the repeated use of nasal masks and had difficulty falling asleep with the CPAP device operating at the prescribed pressure. In more recent years, product innovations to improve patient comfort and compliance have been developed. These include more comfortable patient interface systems; delay timers that gradually raise air pressure allowing the patient to fall asleep more easily; bilevel air devices, including our AirCurve 10 Series and Lumis devices, which provide different air pressures for inhalation and exhalation; heated humidification systems to make the airflow more comfortable; and autotitration devices that modulate the average pressure delivered during the night.
Respiratory Care
Our aim is to provide respiratory care solutions to patients with COPD, asthma, and other chronic respiratory diseases, such as overlap syndrome, obesity hypoventilation syndrome, or OHS, and neuromuscular disease, including amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS. We aim to improve their quality of life, slow down disease progression and reduce the costs of patient management.
Our products cover patients ranging from those who only require therapy from CPAP systems at night, to those who are dependent on non-invasive or invasive ventilation for life-support and those who require portable oxygen concentrators, or POCs. Our devices are predominantly used in the home and, to a lesser extent, in general hospital wards and respiratory wards. We supply CPAP and bilevel device systems, non-invasive and invasive ventilators, humidifiers and accessories, including masks and tubing. We also offer stationary and portable battery-powered oxygen concentrators for the administration of long-term oxygen therapy in the home as well as data management systems designed to improve the management of patients.
In March 2020, the World Health Organization declared the outbreak of a novel strain of coronavirus, or COVID-19, as a pandemic. We have observed increased demand for our ventilator devices and masks, and we are working with governments, health authorities, hospitals, physicians, and patients worldwide to assess their needs, and to deliver the ventilation therapy that is essential to treat the respiratory complications of COVID-19. Our primary focus is to maximize the availability of ResMed ventilators and other respiratory support devices for the patients that need them most.
Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. COPD encompasses a group of lung diseases defined by persistent airflow limitation, prolongation of exhalation and loss of elasticity in the lungs. It is a progressive and debilitating disease and is associated with an increased inflammatory response in the airways. Symptoms encountered with COPD include shortness of breath as well as chronic cough and increased sputum production. COPD includes diseases such as emphysema and chronic bronchitis. A recent study based on recent epidemiology data estimates that there are over 380 million people worldwide who suffer from COPD, the world’s third leading cause of death.
Patients with COPD can have different clinical presentations. Patients with chronic bronchitis present with low level of oxygen (hypoxemia) and elevated levels of carbon dioxide (hypercapnia), a chronic productive cough, cor pulmonale and are commonly overweight. Patients with emphysema have more normal blood gases, are usually thin and hyperinflated and have a decreased diffusion capacity. During sleep, chronic bronchitic patients display more severe hypoxemia. In general, the more hypoxic a COPD patient is during the day the more severe the hypoxemia experienced during sleep. Hypercapnia as a consequence of hypoventilation also occurs in COPD patients and is more pronounced in REM sleep. Some COPD patients may also suffer from comorbid OSA, a condition known as Overlap Syndrome.
Home non-invasive ventilation has the potential to reduce healthcare costs associated with the management of patients with severe COPD by significantly increasing the time between hospital readmissions.
Overlap Syndrome. In patients with Overlap Syndrome, CPAP has been shown to provide benefits in relation to reducing mortality, decreasing hospitalizations and improving lung function and gas exchange. Non-invasive ventilation, or NIV, has been demonstrated to improve outcomes in patients with acute exacerbations of COPD through its ability to improve respiratory acidosis and decrease dyspnea and work of breathing. It may also increase survival rates and reduce length of hospital stays, as well as reducing complicating factors such as ventilator-associated pneumonia. In patients with stable COPD, the advantages of home NIV are less clear, but clinical studies have shown improvements in dyspnea scores and health-related quality-of-life measures and reductions in hospital readmissions and intensive care stays.
Long-term oxygen therapy, or LTOT, is indicated in chronic respiratory failure patients. The administration of LTOT has been shown to increase survival rates in patients with severe resting hypoxemia. In hypoxemic COPD patients, LTOT is associated with a lower mortality compared to nocturnal oxygen therapy alone and also associated with improved health-related quality of life measures. In long-term COPD survivors with a history of congestive heart failure, LTOT is associated with a slowing of respiratory failure progression.
Obesity Hypoventilation Syndrome. OHS is characterized by the combination of obesity, chronic alveolar hypoventilation leading to daytime hypercapnia and hypoxia and sleep apnea after the exclusion of other causes of alveolar hypoventilation. An estimated 90% of patients with OHS also have OSA. In patients with OHS, positive airway therapy, both CPAP and NIV, has been shown to effectively treat upper airway obstruction and reverse daytime respiratory failure as well as reduce the work of breathing and improve respiratory drive.
Neuromuscular Disease. Neuromuscular disease is a broad term that encompasses many diseases that either directly (via intrinsic muscle pathology) or indirectly (via nerve pathology) impair the functioning of muscles. Symptoms of neuromuscular disease and respiratory failure include increasing generalized weakness and fatigue, dysphagia, dyspnoea on exertion and at rest, sleepiness, morning headache, difficulties with concentration and mood changes. Most neuromuscular diseases are characterized by progressive muscular impairment leading to loss of ambulation, being wheelchair-bound, swallowing difficulties, respiratory muscle weakness and, eventually, death from respiratory failure. Neuromuscular disorders can progress rapidly or slowly. Rapidly progressive conditions, such as ALS and Duchenne muscular dystrophy in teenagers, are characterized by muscle impairment which worsens over months and can result in death within a few years. Variable or slowly progressive conditions, such as myotonic muscular dystrophy, are characterized by muscle impairment that worsens over years and may mildly reduce life expectancy.
NIV treatment to patients with neuromuscular disease may lead to improvements in respiratory failure symptoms and daytime arterial blood gases. In ALS patients, NIV treatment has been associated with an improvement in quality of life measures, sleep-related symptoms and survival. Studies have demonstrated that patients with Duchenne muscular dystrophy may improve in quality of life measures and may increase chance of survival with NIV treatment.
Software as a Service
Due to multiple acquisitions, including Brightree in April 2016, HEALTHCAREfirst in July 2018 and MatrixCare in November 2018, our operations now include platforms that comprise our SaaS business. Our SaaS strategy is to develop a portfolio that assists durable medical equipment, or DME, HME, and other long-term care providers operate more effectively and efficiently across various out-of-hospital care settings. Our SaaS portfolio provides services across the HME, home health and hospice, skilled nursing, life plan community and senior living, and private duty services. Our offerings can help providers perform analytics, manage documentation and implement new reimbursement requirements as well as more effectively transfer data as patients move between different care settings.
Business Strategy
We believe that the sleep apnea and respiratory care markets will continue to grow in the future due to a number of factors, including increasing awareness of OSA, CSA and COPD, improved understanding of the role of sleep apnea treatment in the management of cardiac, neurologic, metabolic and related disorders, improved understanding of the role of non-invasive ventilation in the management of COPD, and an increase in the use of digital and product technology to improve patient outcomes and create efficiencies for customers and providers. Additionally, the continued impact of COVID-19 or a resurgence of COVID-19 may create more demand for our ventilator products. Our strategy for expanding our business operations and capitalizing on the growth of the sleep apnea and respiratory care markets, as well as growth in out-of-hospital care settings, consists of the following key elements:
Continue Product Development and Innovation in Sleep Apnea Products. We are committed to ongoing innovation in developing products for the diagnosis and treatment of sleep apnea. We have been a leading innovator of products designed to treat sleep apnea more effectively, increase patient comfort and encourage compliance with prescribed therapy. In recent years we have introduced a full suite of masks in our AirTouch and AirFit ranges, advanced and expanded the integrations of our therapy-based software solutions, including AirView, to promote greater patient adherence and during the COVID-19 pandemic, we released ResMed MaskSelector in the United States, an easy-to-use digital tool to make mask selection and sizing easier and more effective, both remotely and during in-person clinical setups. We believe that the combination of continued product development, product and technology acquisitions and innovation are key factors to our ongoing success. Our recent acquisitions have included a portfolio of sleep apnea products through our acquisition of Curative Medical. Approximately 16% of our employees are devoted to research and development activities.
Continue Product Development and Innovation in Respiratory Care Products. We are committed to ongoing innovation of our respiratory care products that serve the needs of patients with COPD and neuromuscular diseases. With the addition of Inova Labs POCs and our non-invasive ventilator devices with masks and accessories, we intend to continue to expand and enhance our product offerings in this area. In recent years, we launched Mobi, which is our first ResMed-branded portable oxygen concentrator as well as advanced and expanded the integrations of our therapy-based software solutions including AirView for Respiratory Care, enabling clinicians to remotely monitor patients on some ventilation devices and bilevel devices. Additionally, we acquired a digital health platform for inhalers through our acquisition of Propeller Health in 2019, rounding out our portfolio to treat COPD patients through their therapy journey across different stages of their disease.
Expand SaaS Solutions in Out-of-Hospital Care Settings. Our vision is to transform and significantly improve out-of-hospital (OOH) healthcare through a strategy of enabling better patient care, improving clinical decision support, and driving interoperability across out-of-hospital healthcare settings. Since acquiring Brightree in 2016, plus MatrixCare and HEALTHCAREfirst in 2018, we offer software solutions across multiple out-of-hospital healthcare settings including HME, home health and hospice, skilled nursing, life plan communities, senior living and private duty. We are connecting capabilities across the platforms in these out-of-hospital care settings to help our customers be more efficient, better serve people, keep them out-of-hospital, and in lower-cost, higher-quality care settings. Today, our SaaS solutions serve OOH customers combining over 90 million individual accounts.
Expand Geographic Presence. We market our products in more than 140 countries to sleep clinics, home healthcare dealers, patients and third-party payors. We intend to increase our sales and marketing efforts in our principal markets, as well as expand the depth of our presence in other high-growth geographic regions. In 2016, we acquired Curative Medical to invest in the China market and expand our growth potential in sleep apnea, COPD and respiratory care in China. In 2019, we acquired HB Healthcare, a privately owned HME that serves both reimbursed and cash-pay customers of sleep and respiratory care devices in South Korea.
Increase Public and Clinical Awareness. We continue to expand our existing promotional activities to increase awareness of sleep apnea, COPD and other clinical conditions that can be treated with our industry-leading solutions. These promotional activities target both the population predisposed to sleep apnea and medical specialists, such as pulmonologists, sleep medicine specialists, primary care physicians, cardiologists, neurologists and other medical subspecialists who treat these conditions and their associated comorbidities. We target special interest groups, including the National Stroke Association, the American Heart Association, COPD Foundation and the National Sleep Foundation, to further increase awareness of the relationship between OSA, COPD, neuromuscular disease and comorbidities such as cardiac disease, diabetes, hypertension and obesity. The programs also support our efforts to inform the community of the dangers of sleep apnea with regard to occupational health and safety, especially in the transport industry. We have helped establish a center for clinical care and medical research at the University of California, San Diego in the fields of sleep apnea and COPD.
Expand into New Clinical Applications. We continually seek to identify new applications of our technology for significant unmet medical needs. Studies have established a clinical association between OSA and both stroke and congestive heart failure, and have recognized sleep apnea as a cause of hypertension or high blood pressure. Research also indicates that sleep apnea is independently associated with glucose intolerance and insulin resistance. Additionally, research supported by ResMed has demonstrated that the addition of non-invasive ventilation to patients with severe COPD who are receiving oxygen therapy, provides meaningful clinical benefits to the patient, and the broader healthcare system. We maintain close working relationships with a number of prominent physicians to explore new medical applications for our products and technology.
Leverage the Experience of our Management Team. Our senior management team has extensive experience in the medical device industry in general, and in the fields of sleep apnea, respiratory care and healthcare informatics in particular. We intend to continue to leverage the experience and expertise of these individuals to maintain our innovative approach to the development of products and solutions, and to increase awareness of the serious medical problems caused by sleep apnea and the use of oxygen, non-invasive ventilation, and in-home life support ventilation to treat COPD.
Products
Our portfolio of products includes devices, diagnostic products, mask systems, headgear and other accessories, dental devices, POCs and cloud-based software informatics solutions. For purposes of the following discussion, we refer to our air flow generators, ventilators and oxygen concentrators collectively as devices.
Devices
We produce cloud-connected CPAP, APAP, bilevel, and ASV devices that deliver positive airway pressure through a patient interface, either a mask or cannula. Our APAP devices, known as AutoSet, are based on a proprietary technology to monitor breathing and can also be used in the diagnosis, treatment and management of OSA. During fiscal year 2017, we launched AirMini, a small portable CPAP combining the same proven therapy modes used in the AirSense 10 with effective waterless humidification enabling portable convenience. We also acquired a line of Chinese-developed and manufactured sleep and ventilation devices with the acquisition of Curative Medical in fiscal year 2016. Devices in total accounted for approximately 51%, 52% and 56% of our net revenues in fiscal years 2020, 2019 and 2018, respectively.
The tables below provide a selection of products, as known by our trademarks.
CPAP |
DESCRIPTION |
AirSense 10 Elite |
An advanced fixed-pressure therapy device with an integrated humidifier and built-in wireless connectivity. It is designed to be intuitive and easy-to-use.
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AirSense 10 CPAP |
The AirSense 10 CPAP is a fixed-pressure therapy device and built-in wireless connectivity. It also provides compliance, AHI and leak data reporting.
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AUTOSET |
DESCRIPTION |
AirSense 10 Auto |
A premium auto-adjusting therapy device featuring AutoRamp™ with sleep onset detection, expiratory pressure relief (EPR™) and Easy-Breathe technology. The device also features built-in wireless connectivity.
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AirMini |
A small portable CPAP device featuring the same auto-adjusting therapy modes used in the AirSense™ 10 Auto. The device also features built-in Bluetooth connectivity and effective waterless humidification enabled by HumidX technology.
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BILEVEL |
DESCRIPTION |
AirCurve 10 S |
A bilevel device for patients who need extra pressure support or find it difficult to adjust to therapy on a fixed pressure continuous positive airway pressure device. The device features built-in wireless connectivity and works with our AirView™ patient monitoring software.
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AirCurve 10 V Auto |
An auto-adjusting bilevel device for patients who need greater pressure support to treat their obstructive sleep apnea. The device features built-in wireless connectivity and works with our AirView™ patient monitoring software.
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AirCurve 10 ST |
A bilevel device with backup rate that provides exceptional patient-ventilator synchrony, reducing the work of breathing so patients remain comfortable and well ventilated. The device features built-in wireless connectivity and works with our AirView™ patient monitoring software.
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AirCurve 10 ASV and CS |
Adaptive servo-ventilators specifically designed to treat patients exhibiting central sleep apnea (CSA), mixed sleep apnea and periodic breathing, with or without obstructive sleep apnea. These devices also feature built-in wireless connectivity and works with our AirView™ patient monitoring software.
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VENTILATION |
DESCRIPTION |
Stellar 100 and 150 |
Pressure support and volume non-invasive ventilators with invasive capabilities designed to suit a range of environments and for various respiratory patient types.
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Astral 100 and 150 |
Pressure support and volume ventilators for invasive and non-invasive purposes so it can be used from the hospital to the home.
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Lumis 100 and 150 |
Pressure support non-invasive ventilators that support a variety of therapy modes with built-in wireless connectivity and integrated humidification.
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Lumis ST-A |
A Pressure support non-invasive ventilator that supports a variety of therapy modes with built-in wireless connectivity, integrated humidification and a range of fixed and adjustable alarms.
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Mobi |
A portable oxygen concentrator system with a lightweight design and extended battery life to promote greater mobility for patients on oxygen therapy.
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Mask Systems, Diagnostic Products, Accessories and Other Products
Masks, diagnostic products and accessories together accounted for approximately 37%, 37% and 38% of our net revenues in fiscal years 2020, 2019 and 2018, respectively.
Mask Systems
Mask systems are one of the most important elements of sleep apnea treatment systems. Masks are a primary determinant of patient comfort and as such may drive or impede patient compliance with therapy. We have been a consistent innovator in small nasal, nasal pillows and full-face masks, by improving patient comfort while minimizing size and weight.
The table below provides an of overview of our mask systems by category.
CATEGORY |
DESCRIPTION |
Minimalist |
AirFit F30, AirFit P10 and AirFit N30 minimalist masks feature our lightest, lowest profile designs. The features of these masks are focused on minimizing contact with the patient’s face to reduce red marks and irritation.
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Freedom |
AirFit N30i, AirFit P30i and AirFit F30i freedom masks, which feature top-of-head tubing design allowing flexibility to easily switch sleep positions.
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Ultra Soft |
The AirTouch F20 mask features a soft and breathable AirTouch cushion designed to enhance CPAP mask comfort.
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Universal Fit |
AirFit F20 and AirFit N20 masks are designed to fit a wide range of faces due to the InfinitySeal silicone cushion that adapts to unique facial contours, which increases comfort, improves the fit and reduces leakage.
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Diagnostic Products
We market sleep recorders for the diagnosis and titration of sleep apnea in sleep clinics and hospitals. These diagnostic systems record relevant respiratory and sleep data, which can be analyzed by a sleep specialist or physician who can then tailor an appropriate OSA treatment regimen for the patient.
PRODUCTS |
DESCRIPTION |
ApneaLink Air |
A portable diagnostic device which measures oximetry, respiratory effort, pulse, nasal flow and snoring. Works with AirView Diagnostics to provide comprehensive diagnostic solution to clinicians.
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Connected Solutions and Other Products
We have a suite of products that are designed to allow fewer professionals to manage more patients and empower patients to track their own health outcomes. We are expanding our cloud-based patient management and engagement platforms, such as AirView, enabling remote monitoring, over-the-air trouble shooting and changing of device settings, U-Sleep enabling automated patient coaching through a text, email or interactive voice phone call and myAir, a patient engagement application that provides sleep data and a daily score based on their previous night’s data.
PRODUCTS |
DESCRIPTION |
AirView |
A cloud-based system enabling remote monitoring and changing of patients’ device settings. AirView also makes it easier to simplify workflows and collaborate more efficiently across the patient’s care network.
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myAir |
A personalized therapy management application for patients with sleep-disordered breathing providing support, education and troubleshooting tools for increased patient engagement and improved compliance.
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U-Sleep |
A compliance monitoring solution that enables HMEs to streamline their sleep programs to achieve better business and patient outcomes.
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Connectivity Module |
A module providing cellular connection between our compatible ventilation devices (i.e. Astral Stellar) and our AirView™ system.
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Propeller Solutions |
Propeller's inhaler sensors track medication usage and pair with a companion smartphone application, giving people with asthma or COPD a better understanding of their disease and while promoting increased adherence to treatment. The Propeller Provider Portal gives clinicians the timely and accurate information they need to make better treatment decisions.
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SaaS Products
Following multiple acquisitions, including Brightree in April 2016, HEALTHCAREfirst in July 2018 and MatrixCare in November 2018, we now supply out-of-hospital software products designed to support the professionals and caregivers helping people stay healthy in the home or care setting of their choice. SaaS revenue accounted for approximately 12%, 11% and 7% of our net revenue in fiscal years 2020, 2019 and 2018, respectively.
PRODUCTS |
DESCRIPTION |
Brightree solutions |
Brightree enables out-of-hospital care organizations to improve their business performance and deliver better health outcomes. As an industry-leading cloud-based healthcare IT company, Brightree provides solutions and services for thousands of organizations in home medical equipment and pharmacy, orthotic and prosthetic, and home infusion.
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HEALTHCAREfirst solutions
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HEALTHCAREfirst offers electronic health record, or EHR, software, billing and coding services, and advanced analytics that enable home health and hospice agencies to optimize their clinical, financial and administrative processes.
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MatrixCare solutions |
MatrixCare’s EHR software as a service solutions are used by skilled nursing and senior living providers, life plan communities (CCRCs), and home health and hospice organizations to prosper in an ever-changing healthcare system.
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Product Development and Clinical Trials
We have a strong track record of innovation in the sleep and respiratory care markets. In 1989, we introduced our first CPAP device. Since then we have been committed to an ongoing program of product advancement and development. Currently, our product development and clinical trial efforts are focused on not only improving our current product offerings and usability, but also expanding into new product applications.
We continually seek to identify new applications of our technology for significant unmet medical needs. Sleep apnea is associated with a number of symptoms beyond excessive daytime sleepiness and irritability. Studies have established a clinical association between untreated sleep apnea and systemic hypertension, diabetes, coronary artery disease, stroke, atrial fibrillation, congestive heart failure, and mortality.
Across the sleep and respiratory care platforms, we support clinical trials in many countries including the United States, Germany, Netherlands, France, Japan, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, China, Spain, Canada, Singapore and Australia to develop new clinical applications for our technology. We have also begun presenting and publishing research findings based on the industry-leading connectivity platform and data assets that are unique to us. We continue to support some of the largest sleep apnea studies in history by performing advanced statistical analyses on millions of clinical data points using real-world data.
We consult with physicians at major medical centers throughout the world to identify clinical and technological trends in the treatment of sleep apnea, COPD and the other conditions associated with these diseases. New product ideas are also identified by our marketing staff, direct sales force and network of distributors, customers, clinicians and patients.
Sales and Marketing
We currently market our products in more than 140 countries through a network of distributors and our direct sales force. We attempt to tailor our marketing approach to each national market, based on regional awareness of sleep apnea as a health problem, physician referral patterns, consumer preferences and local reimbursement policies. See Note 15 – Segment Information of the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements (Part II, Item 8) for financial information about our geographic areas.
United States, Canada and Latin America. Our products are typically purchased by a home healthcare dealer who then sells the products to the patient. The decision to purchase our products, as opposed to those of our competitors, is made or influenced by one or more of the following individuals or organizations: the prescribing physician and his or her staff; the home healthcare dealer; the insurer and the patient. In the United States, Canada and Latin America, our sales and marketing activities are conducted through a field sales organization made up of regional territory representatives, program development specialists and regional sales directors. Our field sales organization markets and sells products to home healthcare dealer branch locations throughout the United States, Canada and Latin America.
We also market our products directly to physicians and sleep clinics. Patients who are diagnosed with OSA or another respiratory condition and prescribed our products are typically referred by the diagnosing physician or sleep clinic to a home healthcare dealer to fill the prescription. The home healthcare dealer, in consultation with the referring physician, will assist the patient in selecting the equipment, fit the patient with the appropriate mask and set the device pressure to the prescribed level.
Our SaaS solutions are sold to providers of healthcare in various out-of-hospital settings. We market and sell our Brightree business management software and service solutions to providers in the U.S. and our primary markets are HME, pharmacy, home infusion, orthotics and prosthetics. Our sales activities for Brightree products are conducted through a sales organization made up of strategic account managers, sales engineers and sales directors. We develop, market and sell our MatrixCare care management and related ancillary solutions to providers in the U.S. and our primary markets are senior living, skilled nursing; life plan communities; home health, home care, and hospice agencies as well as related accountable care organizations. Our MatrixCare management solutions are primarily sold through direct sales and ancillary solutions are sold both through direct sales and channel partners.
Combined Europe, Asia and other markets. We market our products in most major countries in combined Europe, Asia and other markets. We have wholly-owned subsidiaries in Austria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Australia, China, India, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, Taiwan, and Thailand. We use a combination of our direct sales force and independent distributors to sell our products in combined Europe, Asia and other markets. We select independent distributors in each country based on their knowledge of respiratory medicine and a commitment to sleep apnea therapy. In countries where we sell our products direct, a local senior manager is responsible for direct national sales. In many countries we sell our products to home healthcare dealers or hospitals who then sell the products to the patients. In Germany, Australia, New Zealand, and South Korea, we also operate a home healthcare company, in which we provide products and services directly to patients.
We do not sell our SaaS products in combined Europe, Asia and other markets.
Manufacturing
We operate a globally distributed manufacturing network designed for supply chain resilience, that is intended to control costs and minimize risks. Our manufacturing operations consist of specialist component production as well as assembly and testing of our devices, masks and accessories. Of the numerous raw materials, parts and components purchased for assembly of our therapeutic and diagnostic sleep disorder products, many are off-the-shelf items available from multiple vendors. We also purchase uniquely configured components from various suppliers, including some who are single-source suppliers for us. Any reduction or halt in supply from one of these single-source suppliers could limit our ability to manufacture our products or devices until a replacement supplier is found and qualified. We generally manufacture to our internal sales forecasts and fill orders as received. We strive for continuous improvement in manufacturing processes to deliver year-on-year improvement in output, cost and product quality. Each manufacturing site and team are responsible for the quality of their product group and decisions are based on performance and quality measures, including customer feedback.
Our quality management system is based upon the requirements of ISO 9001, ISO 13485, FDA Quality System Regulations for Medical Devices, the Medical Device Directive (93/42/EEC) and other applicable regulations for the markets in which we sell. Our main manufacturing sites are certified to ISO 13485 and audited at regular intervals by a Notified Body. Additionally, our Sydney, Loyang, San Diego, Atlanta and Moreno Valley sites are certified under the Medical Device Single Audit Program or MDSAP, an audit of medical device manufacturers’ quality management system to satisfy multiple regulatory requirements. MDSAP audits are conducted by a MDSAP recognized auditing organization and can fulfill the needs of multiple regulatory jurisdictions (i.e. Australia, Brazil, Canada, Japan, and the United States of America).
Our main manufacturing facilities are located in Loyang, Singapore; Sydney, Australia; Chatsworth, California; Johor Bahru, Malaysia; Atlanta, Georgia and Suzhou, China. We are establishing a new manufacturing facility in Tuas, Singapore that will eventually replace our Loyang facility. Refer to Item 2 for additional details on these properties.
Third-Party Coverage and Reimbursement
The cost of medical care in many of the countries in which we operate is funded in substantial part by government and private insurance programs. In Germany and Korea, we receive payments directly from these payors but in other countries, although we do not generally receive payments for our products directly from these payors, our success in major markets depends on the ability of patients to obtain coverage and adequate reimbursement from third-party payors for our products.
In the United States, our products are purchased primarily by home healthcare dealers, hospitals or sleep clinics, who invoice third-party payors directly for reimbursement. Domestic third-party payors include government payors such as Medicare and Medicaid and commercial health insurance plans. These payors may deny coverage and reimbursement if they determine that a device is not used in accordance with certain covered treatment methods, or is experimental, unnecessary or inappropriate. The long-term trend towards cost-containment, through managed healthcare, or other legislative proposals to reform healthcare, could control or significantly influence the purchase of healthcare services and products and could result in lower prices for our products. In some foreign markets, such as France, Germany, and Japan, government reimbursement is currently available for purchase or rental of our products, subject to constraints such as price controls or unit sales limitations. In Australia, China, and some other foreign markets, there is currently limited or no reimbursement for devices that treat OSA.
Healthcare reform in the United States continues to bring significant changes to the third-party payor landscape. In 2011, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, or CMS, implemented the competitive bidding program, which included DME that we manufacture and develop, specifically, oxygen, CPAP and respiratory assist devices (or bilevel devices), and related supplies and accessories. CMS is required by law to recompete these contracts at least once every three years. In addition, the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, as amended by the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act, or collectively, the ACA, required CMS to roll out the competitive bidding process nationally or adjust prices in non-competitive bidding areas, also known as the non-bid or Round 3 areas, to match competitive bidding prices by 2016. CMS phased in the new rates beginning January 1, 2016, and the rates became fully effective July 1, 2016. The implementation of the competitive acquisition program has resulted in reduced Medicare payment for oxygen, CPAP and respiratory assist devices, and related supplies and accessories in both competitive bidding areas and non-competitive bidding areas. Through an Interim Final Rule issued in May 2018, CMS increased the fee schedule amounts for certain DME in non-bid areas that qualify as rural and non-contiguous, setting payment for these areas for June 1, 2018 to December 31, 2018 at a 50/50 blended reimbursement rate based on the pre-competitive bidding reimbursement rate and the adjusted reimbursement rate set through competitive bidding.
Due to the lapse of competitive bid contracts as of December 31, 2018, effective January 1, 2019, Medicare beneficiaries may receive DME from any Medicare-enrolled supplier until new contracts are in effect under the next round of competitive bidding, which is expected to take effect on January 1, 2021. Pricing in competitive bidding areas and non-rural, contiguous non-bid areas will continue to use adjusted fee schedule amounts, subject to annual Consumer Price Index (CPI) adjustments, beginning in 2019, until the next bidding round takes place. CMS also extended the blended fee schedule amounts for non-bid rural and non-contiguous areas through December 31, 2020. Under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, or the CARES Act, the blended fee schedule amounts for non-bid rural and non-contiguous areas was extended through the end of the COVID-19 public health emergency, should it extend beyond December 31, 2020, and a blended fee schedule amount was implemented for all other areas for the same period.
In the next round of Durable Medical Equipment, Prosthetics, Orthotics and Supplies (DMEPOS) competitive bidding program, expected to take effect on January 1, 2021, there have been some revisions to the bidding methodology including the plan to implement surety bond requirements, lead item pricing, and setting reimbursement rates at the maximum winning bid rate instead of the median winning bid rate. Although CMS previously expanded the categories of devices subject to competitive bidding to include non-invasive ventilators, or NIVs, starting in 2021, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, CMS removed NIVs from Round 2021 of the DMEPOS Competitive Bidding Program.
The ACA, which was passed both to expand the number of individuals with healthcare coverage and to develop additional revenue sources, also included, among other things, a deductible excise tax equal to 2.3% of the price for which medical devices are sold in the United States on any entity that manufactures or imports medical devices, with limited exceptions, beginning in 2013. However, this excise tax was subsequently suspended by the U.S. Congress for medical device sales, beginning in 2016 and permanently repealed, effective January 1, 2020. The ACA also provided for a number of Medicare regulatory requirements, including new face-to-face encounter requirements for DME and home health services.
We cannot predict at this time the full impact that the ACA, or any U.S. legislation enacted in the future, will have on our revenues, profit margins, profitability, operating cash flows and results of operations. There have been judicial and Congressional challenges to certain aspects of the ACA, as well as recent efforts by the Trump administration to repeal or replace certain aspects of the ACA, and we expect such challenges and amendments to continue. For example, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 includes a provision repealing, effective January 1, 2019, the tax-based shared responsibility payment imposed by the ACA on certain individuals who fail to maintain qualifying health coverage for all or part of a year that is commonly referred to as the “individual mandate.” On December 14, 2018, a U.S. District Court Judge in the Northern District of Texas ruled that the individual mandate is a critical and inseverable feature of the ACA, and therefore, because it was repealed as part of the U.S. Tax Act, the remaining provisions of the ACA are invalid as well. On December 18, 2019, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit upheld the District Court ruling that the individual mandate was unconstitutional and remanded the case back to the District Court to determine whether the remaining provisions of the ACA are invalid as well. On March 2, 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court granted the petitions for writs of certiorari to review this case, although it is unclear when or how the Supreme Court will rule. It is also unclear how other efforts to challenge, repeal or replace the ACA will impact the law or our business.
Service and Warranty
We generally offer either one-year or two-year limited warranties on our devices. In some regions and for certain customers we also offer extended warranties on our devices for one to three years in addition to our limited warranty. Warranties on mask systems are for 90 days. Our distributors either repair our products with parts supplied by us or arrange shipment of products to our facilities for repair or replacement. We receive returns of our products from the field for various reasons. We believe that the level of returns experienced to date is consistent with levels typically experienced by manufacturers of similar devices. We provide for warranties and returns based on historical data.
Competition
The markets for our products and services are highly competitive. We believe that the principal competitive factors in all of our markets are product features, value-added solutions, reliability and price. Customer support, reputation and efficient distribution are also important factors. We compete on a market-by-market basis with various companies, some of which have greater financial, research, manufacturing and marketing resources than us. The disparity between our resources and those of our competitors may increase as a result of the trend towards consolidation in the healthcare industry. In addition, some of our competitors are affiliates of customers of ours, which may make it difficult to compete with them.
Our primary Sleep and Respiratory Care competitors include Philips BV; Fisher & Paykel Healthcare Corporation Limited; DeVilbiss Healthcare; Apex Medical Corporation; BMC Medical Co. Ltd.; and regional manufacturers. Finally, our products compete with surgical procedures, nerve stimulation devices and dental appliances designed to treat OSA and other sleep apnea-related respiratory conditions. The development of new or innovative procedures or devices by others could result in our products becoming obsolete or noncompetitive, which would harm our revenues and financial condition.
For our SaaS business, the market is highly competitive, rapidly evolving, and subject to changing technology, low barriers to entry, shifting customer needs and frequent introductions of new products and services. The development of new or innovative solutions by others could result in our solutions becoming obsolete or noncompetitive, which would harm our revenues and financial condition.
Any product developed by us will have to compete for market acceptance and market share. An important factor in such competition may be the timing of market introduction of competitive products and solutions. Accordingly, the speed with which we can develop products and solutions, complete clinical testing and regulatory clearance processes and provide commercial supply of products and solutions to the market are important competitive factors. In addition, our ability to compete will continue to be dependent on successfully protecting our patents and other intellectual property.
Patents and Proprietary Rights and Related Litigation
We rely on a combination of patents, designs, trademarks, trade secrets, copyrights, and non-disclosure agreements to protect our proprietary technology and rights. Some of these patents, patent applications and designs relate to significant aspects and features of our products. We believe the combination of these rights, in aggregate, are of material importance to each of our businesses. Through our various subsidiaries, as of the date of this report, we own or have licensed rights to over 6,200 pending, allowed or granted patents and designs. Patents and designs have various statutory terms based on the legislation in individual jurisdictions which may be subject to change. Of our patents, 570 U.S. patents and 1,452 foreign patents are due to expire in the next five years. We believe that the expiration of these patents will not have a material adverse impact on our competitive position.
Litigation has been necessary in the past and may be necessary in the future to enforce patents issued to us, to protect our rights, or to defend third-party claims of infringement by us of the proprietary rights of others. The defense and prosecution of patent claims, including pending claims, as well as participation in other inter-party proceedings, can be expensive and time-consuming, even in those instances in which the outcome is favorable to us. Patent laws regarding the enforceability of patents vary from country to country. Therefore, there can be no assurance that patent issues will be uniformly resolved, or that local laws will provide us with consistent rights and benefits.
Government Regulations
FDA
Our products are subject to extensive regulation particularly as to safety, efficacy and adherence to FDA Quality System Regulation, and related manufacturing standards. Medical device products are subject to rigorous FDA and other governmental agency regulations in the United States and similar regulations of foreign agencies abroad. The FDA regulates the design, development, research, preclinical and clinical testing, introduction, manufacture, advertising, labeling, packaging, marketing, distribution, import and export, and record keeping for such products, in order to ensure that medical products distributed in the United States are safe and effective for their intended use. In addition, the FDA is authorized to establish special controls to provide reasonable assurance of the safety and effectiveness of most devices. Non-compliance with applicable requirements can result in import detentions, fines, civil and administrative penalties, injunctions, suspensions or losses of regulatory approvals, recall or seizure of products, operating restrictions, refusal of the government to approve product export applications or allow us to enter into supply contracts, and criminal prosecution.
Unless an exemption applies, the FDA requires that a manufacturer introducing a new medical device or a new indication for use of an existing medical device obtain either a Section 510(k) premarket notification clearance or a premarket approval, or PMA, before introducing it into the U.S. market. The type of marketing authorization is generally linked to the classification of the device. The FDA classifies medical devices into one of three classes (Class I, II or III) based on the degree of risk the FDA determines to be associated with a device and the level of regulatory control deemed necessary to ensure the device’s safety and effectiveness.
Our products currently marketed in the United States are marketed pursuant to 510(k) pre-marketing clearances and are either Class I or Class II devices. The process of obtaining a Section 510(k) clearance generally requires the submission of performance data and often clinical data, which in some cases can be extensive, to demonstrate that the device is “substantially equivalent” to a device that was on the market before 1976 or to a device that has been found by the FDA to be “substantially equivalent” to such a pre-1976 device, a predecessor device is referred to as “predicate device.” As a result, FDA clearance requirements may extend the development process for a considerable length of time. In addition, in some cases, the FDA may require additional review by an advisory panel, which can further lengthen the process. The PMA process, which is reserved for new devices that are not substantially equivalent to any predicate device and for high-risk devices or those that are used to support or sustain human life, may take several years and requires the submission of extensive performance and clinical information.
Medical devices can be marketed only for the indications for which they are cleared or approved. After a device has received 510(k) clearance for a specific intended use, any change or modification that significantly affects its safety or effectiveness, such as a significant change in the design, materials, method of manufacture or intended use, may require a new 510(k) clearance or PMA approval and payment of an FDA user fee. The determination as to whether or not a modification could significantly affect the device’s safety or effectiveness is initially left to the manufacturer using available FDA guidance; however, the FDA may review this determination to evaluate the regulatory status of the modified product at any time and may require the manufacturer to cease marketing and recall the modified device until 510(k) clearance or PMA approval is obtained. The manufacturer may also be subject to significant regulatory fines or penalties.
Any devices we manufacture and distribute pursuant to clearance or approval by the FDA are subject to pervasive and continuing regulation by the FDA and certain state agencies. These include product listing and establishment registration requirements, which help facilitate FDA inspections and other regulatory actions. As a medical device manufacturer, all of our manufacturing facilities are subject to inspection on a routine basis by the FDA. We are required to adhere to applicable regulations setting forth detailed cGMP requirements, as set forth in the QSR, which require, manufacturers, including third-party manufacturers, to follow stringent design, testing, control, documentation and other quality assurance procedures during all phases of the design and manufacturing process. Noncompliance with these standards can result in, among other things, fines, injunctions, civil penalties, recalls or seizures of products, total or partial suspension of production, refusal of the government to grant 510(k) clearance or PMA approval of devices, withdrawal of marketing approvals and criminal prosecutions. We believe that our design, manufacturing and quality control procedures are in compliance with the FDA’s regulatory requirements.
We must also comply with post-market surveillance regulations, including medical device reporting, or MDR, requirements which require that we review and report to the FDA any incident in which our products may have caused or contributed to a death or serious injury. We must also report any incident in which our product has malfunctioned if that malfunction would likely cause or contribute to a death or serious injury if it were to recur.
Labeling and promotional activities are subject to scrutiny by the FDA and, in certain circumstances, by the Federal Trade Commission. Medical devices approved or cleared by the FDA may not be promoted for unapproved or uncleared uses, otherwise known as “off-label” promotion. The FDA and other agencies actively enforce the laws and regulations prohibiting the promotion of off-label uses, and a company that is found to have improperly promoted off-label uses may be subject to significant liability, including substantial monetary penalties and criminal prosecution.
Sales of medical devices outside the United States are subject to regulatory requirements that vary widely from country to country.
EEA
In the European Economic Area, (which is comprised of the 27 member states of the European Union plus Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein), or EEA, manufacturers of medical devices need to comply with the Essential Requirements laid out in Annex I to the EU Medical Devices Directive (Council Directive 93/42/EEC). Compliance with these requirements is a prerequisite to be able to affix the CE mark to medical devices, without which they cannot be marketed or sold in the EEA. To demonstrate compliance with the Essential Requirements and obtain the right to affix the CE Mark, manufacturers of medical devices must undergo a conformity assessment procedure, which varies according to the type of medical device and its classification. Except for low-risk medical devices (Class I with no measuring function and which are not sterile), where the manufacturer can issue an EC Declaration of Conformity based on a self-assessment of the conformity of its products with the Essential Requirements, a conformity assessment procedure requires the intervention of a Notified Body, which is an organization designated by a competent authority of an EEA country to conduct conformity assessments. Depending on the relevant conformity assessment procedure, the Notified Body would audit and examine the Technical File and the quality system for the manufacture, design and final inspection of the devices. The Notified Body issues a CE Certificate of Conformity following successful completion of a conformity assessment procedure conducted in relation to the medical device and its manufacturer and their conformity with the Essential Requirements. This Certificate entitles the manufacturer to affix the CE mark to its medical devices after having prepared and signed a related EC Declaration of Conformity.
As a general rule, demonstration of conformity of medical devices and their manufacturers with the essential requirements must be based, among other things, on the evaluation of clinical data supporting the safety and performance of the products during normal conditions of use. Specifically, a manufacturer must demonstrate that the device achieves its intended performance during normal conditions of use, that the known and foreseeable risks, and any adverse events, are minimized and acceptable when weighed against the benefits of its intended performance, and that any claims made about the performance and safety of the device are supported by suitable evidence.
All manufacturers placing medical devices into the market in the EEA must comply with the EU Medical Device Vigilance System. Under this system, incidents must be reported to the relevant authorities of the member states of the EEA, and manufacturers are required to take Field Safety Corrective Actions, or FSCAs, to reduce a risk of death or serious deterioration in the state of health associated with the use of a medical device that is already placed on the market. An incident is defined as any malfunction or deterioration in the characteristics and/or performance of a device, as well as any inadequacy in the labeling or the instructions for use which, directly or indirectly, might lead to or might have led to the death of a patient or user or of other persons or to a serious deterioration in their state of health. An FSCA may include the recall, modification, exchange, destruction or retrofitting of the device. FSCAs must be communicated by the manufacturer or its legal representative to its customers and/or to the end users of the device through Field Safety Notices. Where appropriate, our products commercialized in Europe are CE marked and classified as either Class I or Class II.
On April 5, 2017, the European Parliament passed the Medical Devices Regulation, which repeals and replaces the EU Medical Devices Directive. Unlike directives, which must be implemented into the national laws of the EEA member states, the regulations would be directly applicable (i.e., without the need for adoption of EEA member State laws implementing them) in all EEA member states and are intended to eliminate current differences in the regulation of medical devices among EEA member States. The Medical Devices Regulation, among other things, is intended to establish a uniform, transparent, predictable and sustainable regulatory framework across the EEA for medical devices and in vitro diagnostic devices and ensure a high level of safety and health while supporting innovation.
The Medical Device Regulation was meant to become applicable three years after publication (in May 2020). However, on April 23, 2020, to allow EEA national authorities, notified bodies, manufacturers and other actors to focus fully on urgent priorities related to the COVID-19 pandemic, the European Council and Parliament adopted Regulation 2020/561, postponing the date of application of the Medical Device Regulation by one year (to May 2021). Once applicable, the new regulations will among other things:
strengthen the rules on placing devices on the market and reinforce surveillance once they are available;
establish explicit provisions on manufacturers' responsibilities for the follow-up of the quality, performance and safety of devices placed on the market;
improve the traceability of medical devices throughout the supply chain to the end-user or patient through a unique identification number;
set up a central database to provide patients, healthcare professionals and the public with comprehensive information on products available in the EU; and
strengthen rules for the assessment of certain high-risk devices, such as implants, which may have to undergo an additional check by experts before they are placed on the market.
These modifications may have an impact on the way we design and manufacture products and the way we conduct our business in the EEA. We are progressing in our plans to meet the new requirements.
Other regulatory bodies
Our devices are sold in multiple countries and often need to be registered with local regulatory bodies such as the Therapeutic Goods Administration in Australia, Health Canada in Canada and CFDA in China.
Other Healthcare Laws
We are subject to a number of laws and regulations that may restrict our business practices, including, without limitation, anti-kickback, false claims, physician payment transparency and data privacy and security laws. The government has interpreted these laws broadly to apply to the marketing and sales activities of manufacturers and distributors like us.
The federal Anti-Kickback Statute prohibits, among other things, persons or entities from knowingly and willfully soliciting, receiving, offering or providing remuneration, directly or indirectly, in cash or in kind, in exchange for or to induce either the referral of an individual for, or the purchase, lease, order or recommendation of, any good, facility, item or service for which payment may be made, in whole or in part, under federal healthcare programs such as Medicare and Medicaid. In addition, a person or entity does not need to have actual knowledge of this statute or specific intent to violate it in order to have committed a violation. Violations of the federal Anti-Kickback Statute may result in significant civil monetary penalties for each violation, plus up to three times the remuneration involved. Violations of the Federal Anti-Kickback Statute can also result in criminal penalties, including significant criminal fines and imprisonment. In addition, violations can result in debarment, suspension or exclusion from participation in government healthcare programs, including Medicare and Medicaid.
The federal civil False Claims Act prohibits, among other things, any person or entity from knowingly presenting, or causing to be presented, a false or fraudulent claim for payment or approval to the federal government or knowingly making, using or causing to be made or used a false record or statement material to a false or fraudulent claim to the federal government. A claim includes “any request or demand” for money or property presented to the U.S. government. The civil False Claims Act also applies to false submissions that cause the government to be paid less than the amount to which it is entitled, such as a rebate. Intent to deceive is not required to establish liability under the civil False Claims Act. In addition, a claim including items or services resulting from a violation of the federal Anti-Kickback Statute constitutes a false or fraudulent claim for purposes of the federal civil False Claims Act. When an entity is determined to have violated the federal civil False Claims Act, the government may impose significant civil fines and penalties for each false claim, plus treble damages, and exclude the entity from participation in Medicare, Medicaid and other federal healthcare programs. Private suits filed under the civil False Claims Act, known as qui tam actions, can be brought by individuals on behalf of the government. These individuals may share in any amounts paid by the entity to the government in fines or settlement.
The federal Civil Monetary Penalties Law prohibits, among other things, the offering or transfer of remuneration to a Medicare or state healthcare program beneficiary if the person knows or should know it is likely to influence the beneficiary’s selection of a particular provider, practitioner, or supplier of services reimbursable by Medicare or a state healthcare program, unless an exception applies.
Additionally, there has been a recent trend of increased federal and state regulation of payments and transfers of value provided to healthcare professionals or entities.
The federal Physician Sunshine Act, which requires certain manufacturers of drugs, biologicals, and medical devices or supplies that require premarket approval by or notification to the FDA, and for which payment is available under Medicare, Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program, to report annually to the CMS information related to (i) payments and other transfers of value to teaching hospitals, physicians (as defined by statute) and, beginning in 2022, physician assistants, nurse practitioners and other practitioners, and (ii) ownership and investment interests held by such providers and their immediate family members. Applicable manufacturers are required to submit annual reports to CMS. Failure to submit required information may result in significant civil monetary penalties for each failure and additional penalties for “knowing failures”, for all payments, transfers of value or ownership or investment interests that are not timely, accurately, and completely reported in an annual submission, and may result in liability under other federal laws or regulations. Certain states also mandate implementation of commercial compliance programs, impose restrictions on device manufacturer marketing practices and/or require the tracking and reporting of gifts, compensation and other remuneration to healthcare professionals and entities.
The federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, or HIPAA, created federal criminal statutes that prohibit among other actions, knowingly and willfully executing, or attempting to execute, a scheme to defraud any healthcare benefit program, including private third-party payors, knowingly and willfully embezzling or stealing from a healthcare benefit program, willfully obstructing a criminal investigation of a healthcare offense, and knowingly and willfully falsifying, concealing or covering up a material fact or making any materially false, fictitious or fraudulent statement in connection with the delivery of or payment for healthcare benefits, items or services. Like the Anti-Kickback Statute, a person or entity does not need to have actual knowledge of these statutes or specific intent to violate them in order to have committed a violation.
Also, many U.S. states and countries outside the U.S. have similar fraud and abuse statutes or regulations that may be broader in scope and may apply regardless of payor, in addition to items and services reimbursed under government programs.
Under HIPAA, as amended by the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act of 2009, or HITECH, which we collectively refer to as HIPAA, the Department of Health and Human Services, or HHS, has issued regulations, including the HIPAA Privacy, Security and Breach Notification Rules, to protect the privacy and security of protected health information, or PHI, used or disclosed by covered entities including health care providers and their business associates. HIPAA also regulates standardization of data content, codes and formats used in health care transactions and standardization of identifiers for health plans and providers. Penalties for violations of HIPAA regulations include significant civil and criminal penalties for each violation. In addition to federal privacy and security regulations, there are a number of state laws governing confidentiality and security of personally identifiable information that are applicable to our business. For example, the California Consumer Privacy Act, or the CCPA, became effective on January 1, 2020. The CCPA gives California residents expanded rights to access and delete their personal information, opt out of certain personal information sharing and receive detailed information about how their personal information is used by requiring covered companies to provide new disclosures to California consumers (as that term is broadly defined) and provide such consumers new ways to opt-out of certain sales of personal information. The CCPA provides for civil penalties for violations, as well as a private right of action for data breaches that is expected to increase data breach litigation. Although the law includes limited exceptions, including for “protected health information” maintained by a covered entity or business associate, it may regulate or impact our processing of personal information depending on the context. CCPA’s implementation standards and enforcement practices are likely to remain uncertain for the foreseeable future, and the CCPA may increase our compliance costs and potential liability. Similar privacy laws have been proposed at the federal level and in other states.
In some of our operations, such as those involving our cloud-based software digital health applications, we are a business associate under HIPAA and therefore required to comply with the HIPAA Security Rule, Breach Notification Rule and certain provisions of the HIPAA Privacy Rule, as well as the terms of our business associate agreements that we enter into with our covered entity customers, and are subject to significant civil and criminal penalties for failure to do so.
In addition, the General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, went into effect in May 2018. The GDPR imposes stringent data protection requirements for the processing of personal data in the European Economic Area, or EEA. The GDPR imposes several stringent requirements for controllers and processors of personal data, and has increased our obligations, for example, by imposing higher standards for obtaining consent from individuals to process their personal data, requiring more robust disclosures to individuals, strengthening individual data rights, shortening timelines for data breach notifications, limiting retention periods and secondary use of information (including for research purposes), increasing requirements pertaining to health data and pseudonymised (i.e., key-coded) data and imposing additional obligations when we contract with third party processors in connection with the processing of the personal data. The GDPR also imposes strict rules on the transfer of personal data out of the EEA, including to the United States; recent legal developments in Europe have created complexity and uncertainty regarding such transfers of personal data from the EEA to the United States. For example, on July 16, 2020, the Court of Justice of the European Union, or CJEU, invalidated the EU-US Privacy Shield Framework, or Privacy Shield, under which personal data could be transferred from the EEA to United States entities that had self-
certified under the Privacy Shield scheme. While the CJEU upheld the adequacy of the standard contractual clauses (a standard form of contract approved by the European Commission as an adequate personal data transfer mechanism, and potential alternative to the Privacy Shield), it made clear that reliance on them alone may not necessarily be sufficient in all circumstances. Use of the standard contractual clauses must now be assessed on a case-by-case basis taking into account the legal regime applicable in the destination country, in particular applicable surveillance laws and rights of individuals and additional measures and/or contractual provisions may need to be put in place, however, the nature of these additional measures is currently uncertain. European data protection law provides that EEA member states may make their own further laws and regulations limiting the processing of genetic, biometric or health data, which could limit our ability to use and share personal data or could cause our costs could increase, and harm our business and financial condition. The GDPR and other similar regulations impose additional conditions in order to satisfy such consent for electronic marketing, such as a prohibition on pre-checked tick boxes and bundled consents, thereby requiring customers to affirmatively consent for a given purpose through separate tick boxes or other affirmative action. Failure to comply with the requirements of GDPR and the applicable national data protection and marketing laws of the EEA member states may result in fines of up to €20,000,000 or up to 4% of the total worldwide annual turnover of the preceding financial year, whichever is higher, and other administrative penalties as well as individual claims for compensation.
Further, following the United Kingdom’s departure from the EU and EEA on January 31, 2020 and the end of the transition period on December 31, 2020, we will have to comply with the GDPR and the GDPR as incorporated into the United Kingdom domestic law, the Data Protection Act 2018, the latter regime having the ability to separately fine up to the greater of £17.5 million or 4% of global turnover. Compliance with these and any other applicable privacy and data security laws and regulations is a rigorous and time-intensive process, and we may be required to put in place additional mechanisms ensuring compliance with the new data protection rules. If we fail to comply with any such laws or regulations, we may face significant fines and penalties that could adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Numerous other state, federal and foreign laws, including consumer protection laws and regulations, govern the collection, dissemination, use, access to, confidentiality and security of patient health information. In addition, Congress and some states are considering new laws and regulations that further protect the privacy and security of medical records or medical information. With the recent increase in publicity regarding data breaches resulting in improper dissemination of consumer information, all 50 states have passed laws regulating the actions that a business must take if it experiences a data breach, such as prompt disclosure to affected customers. Generally, these laws are limited to electronic data and make some exemptions for smaller breaches. Congress has also been considering similar federal legislation relating to data breaches. The Federal Trade Commission, or FTC, and states’ Attorneys General have also brought enforcement actions and prosecuted some data breach cases as unfair and/or deceptive acts or practices under the FTC Act. In addition to data breach notification laws, some states have enacted statutes and rules requiring businesses to reasonably protect certain types of personal information they hold or to otherwise comply with certain specified data security requirements for personal information. These laws may apply directly to our business or indirectly by contract when we provide services to other companies. We intend to continue to comprehensively protect all personal information and to comply with all applicable laws regarding the protection of such information.
The shifting commercial compliance environment and the need to build and maintain robust systems to comply with different compliance or reporting requirements in multiple jurisdictions increase the possibility that a healthcare company may fail to comply fully with one or more of these requirements. If our operations are found to be in violation of any of the health regulatory laws described above or any other laws that apply to us, we may be subject to penalties, including potentially significant criminal and civil and administrative penalties, damages, fines, disgorgement, imprisonment, exclusion from participation in government healthcare programs, contractual damages, reputational harm, administrative burdens, diminished profits and future earnings, and the curtailment or restructuring of our operations, any of which could adversely affect our ability to operate our business and our results of operations.
Employees
As of June 30, 2020, we had approximately 7,770 employees or full-time consultants, of which approximately 3,490 were employed in cost of sales activities including areas such as warehousing and manufacturing, 1,280 in research and development and 3,000 in sales, marketing and administration. Of our employees and consultants, approximately 3,030 were located in the United States, Canada and Latin America, 1,560 in Australia, 1,260 in Europe and 1,920 in Asia. We believe that the success of our business will depend, in part, on our ability to attract and retain qualified personnel.
ITEM 1A RISK FACTORS
Before deciding to purchase, hold or sell our common stock, you should carefully consider the risks described below in addition to the other cautionary statements and risks described elsewhere, and the other information contained, in this Report and in our other filings with the SEC, including our subsequent reports on Forms 10-Q and 8-K. The risks and uncertainties described below are not the only ones we face. Additional risks and uncertainties not presently known to us or that we currently deem immaterial may also affect our business. If any of these known or unknown risks or uncertainties actually occurs with material adverse effects on us, our business, financial condition and results of operations could be seriously harmed. In that event, the market price for our common stock will likely decline, and you may lose all or part of your investment.
Our inability to compete successfully in our markets may harm our business. The markets for our products, which encompass Sleep and Respiratory Care products and SaaS offerings, are highly competitive and are characterized by frequent product improvements and evolving technology. Our ability to compete successfully depends, in part, on our ability to develop, manufacture and market innovative new products. For our Sleep and Respiratory Care business, the development of innovative new products by our competitors or the discovery of alternative treatments or potential cures for the conditions that our products treat could make our products noncompetitive or obsolete. Current competitors, new entrants, academics, and others are trying to develop new devices, alternative treatments or cures, and pharmaceutical solutions to the conditions our products treat. For SaaS, the market for business management software is highly competitive, rapidly evolving, subject to changing technology, with low barriers to entry, shifting customer needs and frequent introductions of new products and services. Many prospective customers have invested substantial personnel and financial resources to implement and integrate their current business management software into their operations and, therefore, may be reluctant or unwilling to change from their current solution or provider to one of our platforms or products.
Additionally, some of our competitors have greater financial, research and development, manufacturing and marketing resources than we do. The past several years have seen a trend towards consolidation in the healthcare industry and in the markets for our products. Industry consolidation could result in greater competition if our competitors combine their resources, if our competitors are acquired by other companies with greater resources than ours, or if our competitors become affiliated with customers of ours. This competition could increase pressure on us to reduce the selling prices of our products or could cause us to increase our spending on research and development and sales and marketing. If we are unable to develop innovative new products, maintain competitive pricing, and offer products that consumers perceive to be as good as those of our competitors, our sales or gross margins could decrease which would harm our business.
Our business depends on our ability to market effectively to dealers of home healthcare products and sleep clinics. We market our products primarily to home healthcare dealers and to sleep clinics that diagnose OSA and other sleep disorders, as well as to non-sleep specialist physician practices that diagnose and treat sleep disorders. We believe that these groups play a significant role in determining which brand of product a patient will use. The success of our business depends on our ability to market effectively to these groups to ensure that our products are properly marketed and sold by these third-parties.
We have limited resources to market to the sleep clinics, home healthcare dealer branch locations and to the non-sleep specialists, most of whom use, sell or recommend several brands of products. In addition, home healthcare dealers have experienced price pressures as government and third-party reimbursement has declined for home healthcare products, and home healthcare dealers are requiring price discounts and longer periods of time to pay for products purchased from us. We cannot assure you that physicians will continue to prescribe our products, or that home healthcare dealers or patients will not substitute competing products when a prescription specifying our products has been written.
We have expanded our marketing activities in some markets to target the population with a predisposition to sleep-disordered breathing as well as primary care physicians and various medical specialists. We cannot assure you that these marketing efforts will be successful in increasing awareness or sales of our products.
Consolidation in the health care industry could have an adverse effect on our revenues and results of operations. Many home health care dealers and out-of-hospital health providers are consolidating, which may result in greater concentration of market power. As the health care industry consolidates, competition to provide goods and services to industry participants may become more intense. These industry participants may try to use their market power to negotiate price concessions or reductions for medical devices and components produced by us. If we are forced to reduce our prices because of consolidation in the health care industry, our revenues may decrease and our consolidated earnings, financial condition, and/or cash flows may suffer.
If we are unable to support our continued growth, our business could suffer. As we continue to grow, the complexity of our operations increases, placing greater demands on our management. Our ability to manage our growth effectively depends on our ability to implement and improve our financial and management information systems on a timely basis and to effect other changes in our business including, the ability to monitor and improve manufacturing systems, information technology, and quality and regulatory compliance systems, among others. Unexpected difficulties during expansion, the failure to attract and retain qualified employees, the failure to successfully replace or upgrade our management information systems, the failure to manage costs or our inability to respond effectively to growth or plan for future expansion could cause our growth to stop. If we fail to manage our growth effectively and efficiently, our costs could increase faster than our revenues and our business results could suffer.
Our business, financial condition and results of operations could be harmed by the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. We are subject to risks related to the global pandemic associated with COVID-19, which may have an adverse impact on certain aspects of our business. Specifically, diagnostic pathways for sleep apnea treatment, including physician practices, HME suppliers and sleep clinics, have been impacted and, in some instances, been required, or in the future may be required, to temporarily close due to governments’ “shelter-in-place” orders, quarantines or similar orders or restrictions enacted to control the spread of COVID-19. In some countries, new patients are prescribed sleep apnea treatment through hospitals that are directing their resources to critical care, including COVID-19 treatment. The impact on these diagnostic and prescription pathways has resulted and may continue to result in a decrease in demand for our products designed to treat sleep apnea.
While we have experienced increased demand for our respiratory care products due to the nature of COVID-19, we cannot guarantee that demand will continue or that we will be able to identify and obtain adequate raw materials or otherwise maintain operations, supply chains and distribution systems to satisfy demand for our products in a cost-effective manner or at all. Additionally, if the increase in demand currently being experienced for our respiratory care products declines more abruptly than expected this could adversely impact our inventory levels and may result in excess inventory, which we may be unable to sell. Furthermore, due to governments’ varying restrictions on international and domestic travel, access to labor for our manufacturing facilities could be adversely impacted.
Our SaaS business may also be affected by COVID-19 and measures taken to control the spread of COVID-19. Some of our existing and potential SaaS customers are HME distributors and, therefore, have been impacted, or may be impacted, by the same temporary business closures noted above. We also have existing and potential SaaS customers that operate care facilities and are either receiving and treating patients infected with COVID-19 or are implementing significant measures to safeguard their facilities against a potential COVID-19 outbreak. Given these challenging business conditions and the uncertain economic environment, we expect businesses will be deterred from adopting new or changing SaaS platforms, which may adversely impact our ability to engage new customers for our SaaS businesses, or expand the services used by existing customers.
Additionally, the types of restrictions enacted to control the spread of COVID-19 have resulted in most of our employees working from home, and have resulted or may result in the employees of our key suppliers and customers working from home or, as noted above, not working at all. Neither we nor our suppliers have significant experience operating with the majority of our work forces working from home and this may disrupt our standard operations or significantly hamper our products from moving through our supply chain. If we are unable to move products efficiently through the supply chain we may be unable to satisfy customer demand, which could negatively impact our results of operations.
Health regulatory agencies globally may also experience disruptions in their operations as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Any delay or de-prioritization of our product development activities or delay in regulatory review resulting from such disruptions could materially affect our results of operations.
In addition to existing travel restrictions, countries may continue to close borders, impose prolonged quarantines, and further restrict travel, which may also disrupt our ability to move our product by air and sea. The continued spread of COVID-19 has also led to extreme disruption and volatility in the global capital markets, which increases the cost of, and adversely impacts access to, capital and increases economic uncertainty. While we expect COVID-19 to negatively impact certain aspects of our business, given the rapid and evolving nature of the virus and the uncertainty about its impact on society and the global economy, we cannot predict the extent to which it will affect our global operations, particularly if these impacts persist or worsen over an extended period of time.
We are subject to various risks relating to international activities that could affect our overall profitability. We manufacture substantially all of our products outside the United States and sell a significant portion of our products in non-U.S. markets. Sales in combined Europe, Asia and other markets accounted for approximately 38% and 39% of our net revenues in the years ended June 30, 2020 and June 30, 2019 respectively. We expect that sales within these areas will account for approximately 35-40% of our net revenues in the foreseeable future. Our sales and operations outside of the U.S. are subject to several difficulties and risks that are separate and distinct from those we face in the U.S., including:
fluctuations in currency exchange rates;
tariffs and other trade barriers;
compliance with foreign medical device manufacturing regulations;
difficulty in enforcing agreements and collecting receivables through foreign legal systems;
reduction in third-party payor reimbursement for our products;
inability to obtain import licenses;
the impact of public health epidemics/pandemics on the global economy, such as COVID-19 that has spread globally;
changes in trade policies and in U.S. and foreign tax policies;
possible changes in export or import restrictions; and
the modification or introduction of other governmental policies with potentially adverse effects.
Any of the above factors may have a material adverse effect on our ability to increase or maintain our non-U.S. sales.
If we fail to effectively integrate and capitalize on our acquisitions, combining them with our other SaaS operations, our SaaS businesses could suffer. Part of our growth strategy includes acquiring businesses consistent with our commitment to innovation in developing products for the diagnosis and treatment of sleep apnea and respiratory care as well as our SaaS business. For example, we acquired MatrixCare in November 2018 and Propeller Health in January 2019. The success of our acquisitions will depend, in part, on our ability to successfully integrate the business and operations of the acquired companies. Additionally, our management may have their attention diverted while trying to integrate these businesses. If we are not able to successfully integrate the operations, we may not realize the anticipated benefits of the acquisitions fully or at all, or may take longer to realize than expected.
We have made certain assumptions relating to our recent acquisitions that may prove to be materially inaccurate. We have made certain assumptions relating to our recent acquisitions, including MatrixCare, such as:
projections of each acquired company’s future revenue;
the amount of goodwill and intangibles that will result from our acquisitions;
acquisition costs, including transaction, contingent consideration and integration costs; and
other financial and strategic rationales and risks of the acquisitions.
While management has made such assumptions in good faith and believes them to be reasonable, the assumptions may turn out to be materially inaccurate, including for reasons beyond our control. If these assumptions are incorrect we may change or modify our assumptions, and such change or modification could have a material adverse effect on our financial condition or results of operations.
Our SaaS business depends substantially on customers entering into, renewing, upgrading and expanding their agreements for cloud services, term licenses, and maintenance and support agreements with us. Any decline in our customer renewals, upgrades or expansions could adversely affect our future operating results. We typically enter into term-based agreements for our licensed on-premises offerings, cloud services, and maintenance and support services, which customers have discretion to renew or terminate at the end of the initial term. In order for us to improve our operating results, it is important that new customers enter into renewable agreements, and our existing customers renew, upgrade and expand their term-based agreements when the initial contract term expires. Our customers have no obligation to renew, upgrade or expand their agreements with us after the terms have expired. Our customers’ renewal, upgrade and expansion rates may decline or fluctuate as a result of a number of factors, including their satisfaction or dissatisfaction with our offerings, our pricing, the effects of general economic conditions, competitive offerings or alterations or reductions in our customers’ spending levels. If our customers do not renew, upgrade or expand their agreements with us or renew on terms less favorable to us, our revenues may decline.
Government and private insurance plans may not adequately reimburse our customers for our products, which could result in reductions in sales or selling prices for our products. Our ability to sell our products depends in large part on the extent to which coverage and adequate reimbursement for our products will be available from government health administration authorities, private health insurers and other organizations. These third-party payers are increasingly challenging the prices charged for medical products and services and can, without notice, deny coverage for our products or treatments that may include the use of our products. Therefore, even if a product is approved for marketing, we cannot make assurances that coverage and reimbursement will be available for the product, that the reimbursement amount will be adequate or that the reimbursement amount, even if initially adequate, will not be subsequently reduced. For example, in some markets, such as Spain, France and Germany, government coverage and reimbursement are currently available for the purchase or rental of our products but are subject to constraints such as price controls or unit sales limitations. In other markets, such as Australia, there is currently limited or no reimbursement for devices that treat sleep apnea conditions. As we continue to develop new products, those products will generally not qualify for coverage and reimbursement until they are approved for marketing, if at all.
In the United States, we sell our products primarily to home healthcare dealers, hospitals and sleep clinics. Reductions in reimbursement to our customers by third-party payers, if they occur, may have a material impact on our customers and, therefore, may indirectly affect our pricing and sales to, or the collectability of receivables we have from, those customers. A development negatively affecting reimbursement stems from the Medicare competitive bidding program mandated by the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003 (MMA). Under the program, our customers who provide HME must compete to offer products in designated competitive bidding areas, or CBAs. In addition, under the ACA, in 2016, CMS adjusted the prices in non-competitive bidding areas to match competitive bidding prices. CMS phased in the new rates beginning January 1, 2016, and were fully effective July 1, 2016. This program has significantly reduced the Medicare reimbursement to our customers compared with reimbursement in 2011, at the beginning of the program. The 21st Century Cures Act retroactively adjusted rates in non-bid areas to allow for the higher phase-in rates to be paid for items furnished between July 1, 2016 and December 31, 2016, rather than the lower fully-adjusted rates. Rules issued by CMS in 2018 resumed the higher phase-in rates in rural and non-contiguous non-competitive bidding areas for items furnished between June 1, 2018 and December 31, 2020. Pursuant to the CARES Act, these higher phase-in rates were extended through December 31, 2020, or through the end of the COVID-19 public health emergency, and were implemented in areas other than rural areas and noncontiguous areas for the same period. On March 7, 2019, CMS announced it would initiate a new round of competitive bidding, named Round 2021, with contracts expected to become effective on January 1, 2021, and extend through December 31, 2023. In addition to adopting new bidding processes, CMS expanded the product categories included in competitive bidding to include non-invasive ventilators, in addition to oxygen. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, CMS removed NIVs from Round 2021 of the DMEPOS Competitive Bidding Program. CPAP, and respiratory assist devices, and related supplies and accessories, which had been included in prior rounds of competitive bidding, remain included in Round 2021.
We cannot predict at this time the full impact the competitive bidding program and the developments in the competitive bidding program will have on our business and financial condition. If changes are made to this program in the future, it could affect amounts being recovered by our customers.
Healthcare reform may have a material adverse effect on our industry and our results of operations. In March 2010, the ACA was signed into law in the United States. The ACA made changes that significantly impacted the healthcare industry, including medical device manufacturers. One of the principal purposes of the ACA was to expand health insurance coverage to millions of Americans who were uninsured. The ACA required adults not covered by an employer or government-sponsored insurance plan to maintain health insurance coverage or pay a penalty, a provision commonly referred to as the individual mandate.
The ACA also contained a number of provisions designed to generate the revenues necessary to fund the coverage expansions. This included new fees or taxes on certain health-related industries, including medical device manufacturers. Beginning in 2013, entities that manufacture, produce or import medical devices were required to pay an excise tax in an amount equal to 2.3% of the price for which such devices are sold in the United States. This excise tax was applicable to our products that are primarily used in hospitals and sleep labs, which includes the ApneaLink, VPAP Tx, certain Respiratory Care and dental sleep products. Through a series of legislative amendments, the tax was suspended beginning in 2016, and permanently repealed effective January 1, 2020. In addition to the competitive bidding changes discussed above, the ACA also included, among other things, demonstrations to develop organizations that are paid under a new payment methodology for voluntary coordination of care by groups of providers, such as physicians and hospitals, and the establishment of a new Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute to oversee, identify priorities in and conduct comparative clinical effectiveness research. The increased funding and focus on comparative clinical effectiveness research, which compares and evaluates the risks and benefits, clinical outcomes, effectiveness and appropriateness of products, may result in lower reimbursements by payors for our products and decreased profits to us.
Other federal legislative changes have been proposed and adopted since the ACA was enacted. These changes included an aggregate reduction in Medicare payments to providers of 2% per fiscal year, which went into effect on April 1, 2013. The CARES Act, which was signed into law in March 2020, suspended the payment reductions from May 1, 2020 through December 31, 2020, and extended the sequester by one additional year, through 2030. In addition, on January 2, 2013, the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012, was signed into law, which, among other things, further reduced Medicare payments to several providers, including hospitals, and increased the statute of limitations period for the government to recover overpayments to providers from three to five years.
The full impact on our business of the ACA and other new laws is uncertain. Nor is it clear whether other legislative changes will be adopted, if any, or how such changes would affect the demand for our products. Future actions by the administration and the U.S. Congress including, but not limited to, repeal or replacement of the ACA could have a material adverse impact on our results of operations or financial condition. Additionally, all or a portion of the ACA and related subsequent legislation may be modified, repealed or otherwise invalidated through other judicial challenge. For example, on December 14, 2018, a U.S. District Court Judge in the Northern District of Texas, ruled that the individual mandate is a critical and inseverable feature of the ACA, and therefore, because it was repealed as part of the U.S. Tax Act, the remaining provisions of the ACA are invalid as well. On December 18, 2019, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit upheld the District Court ruling that the individual mandate was unconstitutional and remanded the case back to the District Court to determine whether the remaining provisions of the ACA are invalid as well. On March 2, 2020, the United States Supreme Court granted the petitions for writs of certiorari to review this case, although it remains unclear when or how the Supreme Court will rule. It is also unclear how other efforts to challenge, repeal or replace the ACA will impact the ACA or our business.
Various healthcare reform proposals have also emerged at the state level within the United States. The ACA as well as other federal and/or state healthcare reform measures that may be adopted in the future, singularly or in the aggregate, could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Failure to comply with anti-kickback and fraud regulations could result in substantial penalties and changes in our business operations. Although in the United States we do not provide healthcare services, submit claims for third-party reimbursement, or receive payments directly from Medicare, Medicaid or other third-party payors for our products, we are subject to healthcare fraud and abuse regulation and enforcement by federal, state and foreign governments, which could significantly impact our business. We also are subject to foreign fraud and abuse laws, which vary by country.
In the United States, the laws that may affect our ability to operate include, but are not limited to:
the federal Anti-Kickback Statute, which prohibits, among other things, persons and entities from knowingly and willfully soliciting, receiving, offering, or paying remuneration, directly or indirectly, in cash or in kind, in exchange for or to induce either the referral of an individual for, or the purchase, lease, order or recommendation of, any good, facility, item or service for which payment may be made, in whole or in part, under federal healthcare programs such as Medicare and Medicaid. A person or entity does not need to have actual knowledge of this statute or specific intent to violate the Anti-Kickback Statute itself to have committed a violation. The U.S. government has interpreted this law broadly to apply to the marketing and sales activities of manufacturers and distributors like us. Violations of the federal Anti-Kickback Statute may result in significant civil monetary penalties for each violation, plus up to three times the remuneration involved. Violations of the Federal Anti-Kickback Statute can also result in significant criminal penalties and imprisonment;
federal civil and criminal false claims laws and civil monetary penalty laws, that prohibit, among other things, knowingly presenting, or causing to be presented, claims for payment or approval to the federal government that are false or fraudulent, knowingly making a false statement material to an obligation to pay or transmit money or property to the federal government or knowingly concealing or knowingly and improperly avoiding or decreasing an obligation to pay or transmit money or property to the federal government. These laws may apply to manufacturers and distributors who provide information on coverage, coding, and reimbursement of their products to persons who do bill third-party payors. In addition, the government may assert that a claim including items or services resulting from a violation of the federal Anti-Kickback Statute constitutes a false or fraudulent claim for purposes of the federal civil False Claims Act. Violations can result in debarment, suspension or exclusion from participation in government healthcare programs, including Medicare and Medicaid. When an entity is determined to have violated the federal civil False Claims Act, the government may impose significant civil fines and penalties for each false claim, plus treble damages, and exclude the entity from participation in Medicare, Medicaid and other federal healthcare programs.
HIPAA, which created federal criminal laws that prohibit executing a scheme to defraud any healthcare benefit program or making false statements relating to healthcare matters. A person or entity does not need to have actual knowledge of these statutes or specific intent to violate them to have committed a violation. Further, failure to comply with the HIPAA privacy and security standards can result in significant civil monetary penalties per violation and, in certain circumstances, significant criminal penalties and/or imprisonment;
the federal Physician Sunshine Act requirements under the ACA, which impose reporting and disclosure requirements on device and drug manufacturers for any “transfer of value” made or distributed by certain manufacturers of drugs, devices, biologics, and medical supplies to physicians (including doctors, dentists, optometrists, podiatrists and chiropractors), teaching hospitals, and ownership and investment interests held by physicians and their immediate family members. Beginning in 2022, applicable manufacturers also will be required to report such information regarding payments and transfers of value provided, as well as ownership and investment interests held, during the previous year to physician assistants, nurse practitioners, clinical nurse specialists, certified nurse anesthetists and certified nurse midwives;
federal consumer protection and unfair competition laws, which broadly regulate marketplace activities and activities that potentially harm customers; and
state and foreign law equivalents of each of the above federal laws, such as state anti-kickback and false claims laws that may apply to items or services reimbursed by any third-party payor, including commercial insurers; state laws that require device companies to comply with the industry’s voluntary compliance guidelines and the relevant compliance guidance promulgated by the federal government, or otherwise restrict payments that may be made to healthcare providers and other potential referral sources; state laws that require device manufacturers to report information related to payments and other transfers of value to physicians and other healthcare providers or marketing expenditures.
The scope and enforcement of these laws are uncertain and subject to rapid change in the current environment of healthcare reform, especially in light of the lack of applicable precedent and regulations. Federal and state enforcement bodies have recently increased their scrutiny of interactions between healthcare companies and healthcare providers, which has led to a number of investigations, prosecutions, convictions and settlements in the healthcare industry. Responding to investigations can be time-and resource-consuming and can divert management’s attention from the business. Additionally, as a result of these types of investigations, healthcare providers and entities may face litigation or have to agree to settlements that can include monetary penalties and onerous compliance and reporting requirements as part of a consent decree or corporate integrity agreement. Any such investigation or settlement could increase our costs or otherwise have an adverse effect on our business.
If our operations are found to be in violation of any of the laws described above or any other governmental regulations that apply to us now or in the future, we may be subject to penalties, including civil and criminal penalties, damages, fines, disgorgement, exclusion from governmental health care programs, additional compliance and reporting obligations, imprisonment and the curtailment or restructuring of our operations, any of which could adversely affect our ability to operate our business and our financial results.
In December 2019, we entered into a settlement agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Attorneys’ Offices for the District Court of South Carolina, the Southern District of California, the Northern District of Iowa and the Eastern District of New York. The agreement resolves five lawsuits originally brought by whistleblowers under the qui tam provisions of the False Claims Act and allegations that we: (a) provided DME companies with free telephone call center services and other free patient outreach services that enabled these companies to order resupplies for their patients with sleep apnea, (b) provided sleep labs with free and below-cost positive airway pressure masks and diagnostic machines, as well as free installation of these machines, (c) arranged for, and fully guaranteed the payments due on, interest-free loans that DME supplies acquired from third-party financial institutions for the purchase of our equipment, and (d) provided non-sleep specialist physicians free home sleep testing devices referred to as “ApneaLink.” We agreed with the government to civilly resolve these matters for a payment of $39.5 million ($37.5 million to the federal government and $2 million to the various states) and we incurred additional fees and administrative costs that typically accompany such a resolution amounting to $1.1 million. The total final costs relating to these matters was $40.6 million.
Contemporaneous with the civil settlement, we also entered into a Corporate Integrity Agreement, or CIA, with the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General. The CIA requires, among other things, that we implement additional controls around our product pricing and sales and that we conduct internal and external monitoring of our arrangements with referrals sources. The settlement agreement with the government and the CIA could result in reputational harm, the curtailment or restructuring of our operations and an increase in our compliance costs, any of which could materially adversely affect our financial results and our ability to operate our business.
Our use and disclosure of individually identifiable information, including health information, is subject to federal, state and foreign privacy and security regulations, and our failure to comply with those regulations or to adequately secure the information we hold could result in significant liability or reputational harm. The privacy and security of personally identifiable information stored, maintained, received or transmitted electronically is a major issue in the United States and abroad. While we strive to comply with all applicable privacy and security laws and regulations, as well as our own posted privacy policies, legal standards for privacy, including but not limited to “unfairness” and “deception,” as enforced by the FTC and state attorneys general, continue to evolve and any failure or perceived failure to comply may result in proceedings or actions against us by government entities or others, or could cause us to lose audience and customers, which could have a material adverse effect on our business. Recently, there has been an increase in public awareness of privacy issues in the wake of revelations about the activities of various government agencies and in the number of private privacy-related lawsuits filed against companies. Concerns about our practices with regard to the collection, use, disclosure, or security of personally identifiable information or other privacy-related matters, even if unfounded and even if we are in compliance with applicable laws, could damage our reputation and harm our business.
Numerous foreign, federal and state laws and regulations govern collection, dissemination, use and confidentiality of personally identifiable health information, including (i) state privacy and confidentiality laws (including state laws requiring disclosure of breaches); (ii) HIPAA; and (iii) European and other foreign data protection laws, including the GDPR.
HIPAA establishes a set of national privacy and security standards for the protection of individually identifiable health information, or protected health information, by health plans, healthcare clearinghouses and healthcare providers that submit certain covered transactions electronically, or covered entities, and their “business associates,” which are persons or entities that perform certain services for, or on behalf of, a covered entity that involve creating, receiving, maintaining or transmitting protected health information. Certain portions of our business, such as the cloud-based software digital health applications, are subject to HIPAA as a business associate of our covered entity clients. To provide our covered entity clients with services that involve access to PHI, HIPAA requires us to enter into business associate agreements that require us to safeguard PHI in accordance with HIPAA. As a business associate, we are also directly liable for compliance with HIPAA. Penalties for violations of HIPAA regulations include civil and criminal penalties.
HIPAA authorizes state attorneys’ general to file suit under HIPAA on behalf of state residents. Courts can award damages, costs and attorneys’ fees related to violations of HIPAA in such cases. While HIPAA does not create a private right of action allowing individuals to sue us in civil court for HIPAA violations, its standards have been used as the basis for a duty of care claim in state civil suits such as those for negligence or recklessness in the misuse or breach of PHI.
HIPAA further requires business associates like us to notify our covered entity clients “without unreasonable delay and in no case later than 60 calendar days after discovery of the breach.” Covered entities must notify affected individuals “without unreasonable delay and in no case later than 60 calendar days after discovery of the breach” if their unsecured PHI is subject to an unauthorized access, use or disclosure. If a breach affects 500 patients or more, covered entities must report it to HHS and local media without unreasonable delay, and HHS will post the name of the breaching entity on its public website. If a breach affects fewer than 500 individuals, the covered entity must log it and notify HHS at least annually.
If we are unable to properly protect the privacy and security of health information entrusted to us, our solutions may be perceived as not secure, we may incur significant liabilities and customers may curtail their use of or stop using our solutions. In addition, if we fail to comply with the terms of our business associate agreements with our clients, we are liable not only contractually but also directly under HIPAA.
In addition, the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 or CCPA became effective on January 1, 2020. The CCPA gives California residents expanded rights to access and delete their personal information, opt out of certain personal information sharing and receive detailed information about how their personal information is used by requiring covered companies to provide new disclosures to California consumers (as that term is broadly defined) and provide such consumers new ways to opt-out of certain sales of personal information. The CCPA includes civil penalties for violations, as well as a private right of action for data breaches that is expected to increase data breach litigation. Although the law includes limited exceptions, including for “protected health information” maintained by a covered entity or business associate, it may regulate or impact our processing of personal information depending on the context. CCPA’s implementation standards and enforcement practices are likely to remain uncertain for the foreseeable future, and the CCPA may increase our compliance costs and potential liability. Any failure or perceived failure by us to comply with privacy or security laws, policies, legal obligations or industry standards or any security incident that results in the unauthorized release or transfer of personally identifiable information may also result in governmental enforcement actions and investigations, fines and penalties, litigation and/or adverse publicity, including by consumer advocacy groups, and could cause our customers to lose trust in us, which could have an adverse effect on our reputation and business. Such failures could have a material adverse effect on our financial condition and operations. If the third parties we work with violate applicable laws, contractual obligations or suffer a security breach, such violations may also put us in breach of our obligations under privacy laws and regulations and/or could in turn have a material adverse effect on our business.
We are also subject to laws and regulations in non-U.S. countries covering data privacy and the protection of health-related and other personal information. For example, EU member states and other jurisdictions have adopted data protection laws and regulations, which impose significant compliance obligations. Laws and regulations in these jurisdictions apply broadly to the collection, use, storage, disclosure and security of personal information that identifies or may be used to identify an individual, such as names, contact information, and sensitive personal data such as health data. These laws and regulations are subject to frequent revisions and differing interpretations, and have generally become more stringent over time.
In addition, the GDPR went into effect in May 2018. The GDPR imposes stringent data protection requirements for the processing of personal data in the European Economic Area, or EEA. The GDPR imposes several stringent requirements for controllers and processors of personal data, and increased our obligations, for example, by imposing higher standards for obtaining consent from individuals to process their personal data, requiring more robust disclosures to individuals, strengthening individual data rights, shortening timelines for data breach notifications, limiting retention periods and secondary use of information (including for research purposes), increasing requirements pertaining to health data and pseudonymised (i.e., key-coded) data and imposing additional obligations when we contract with third party processors in connection with the processing of the personal data. The GDPR also imposes strict rules on the transfer of personal data out of the EEA, including to the United States, and recent legal developments in Europe have created complexity and uncertainty regarding such transfers of personal data from the EEA to the United States. For example, on July 16, 2020, the Court of Justice of the European Union, or CJEU, invalidated the EU-US Privacy Shield Framework, or Privacy Shield, under which personal data could be transferred from the EEA to United States entities that had self-certified under the Privacy Shield scheme. While the CJEU upheld the adequacy of the standard contractual clauses (a standard form of contract approved by the European Commission as an adequate personal data transfer mechanism, and potential alternative to the Privacy Shield), it made clear that reliance on them alone may not necessarily be sufficient in all circumstances. Use of the standard contractual clauses must now be assessed on a case-by-case basis taking into account the legal regime applicable in the destination country, in particular applicable surveillance laws and rights of individuals and additional measures and/or contractual provisions may need to be put in place, however, the nature of these additional measures is currently uncertain. European data protection law provides that EEA member states may make their own further laws and regulations limiting the processing of genetic, biometric or health data, which could limit our ability to use and share personal data or could cause our costs could increase, and harm our business and financial condition. The GDPR and other similar regulations impose additional conditions in order to satisfy such consent for electronic marketing, such as a prohibition on pre-checked tick boxes and bundled consents, thereby requiring customers to affirmatively consent for a given purpose through separate tick boxes or other affirmative action. Failure to comply with the requirements of GDPR and the applicable national data protection and marketing laws of the EEA member states may result in fines of up to €20,000,000 or up to 4% of the total worldwide annual turnover of the preceding financial year, whichever is higher, and other administrative penalties as well as individual claims for compensation.
In addition, following the United Kingdom’s departure from the EU and the EEA on January 31, 2020 and the end of the transition period on December 31, 2020, we will have to comply with the GDPR and the GDPR as incorporated into the United Kingdom domestic law, the Data Protection Act 2018, the latter regime having the ability to separately fine up to the greater of £17.5 million or 4% of global turnover. Compliance with these and any other applicable privacy and data security laws and regulations is a rigorous and time-intensive process, and we may be required to put in place additional mechanisms ensuring compliance with the new data protection rules. If we fail to comply with any such laws or regulations, we may face significant fines and penalties that could adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Our business activities are subject to extensive regulation, and any failure to comply could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, or results of operations. We are subject to extensive U.S. federal, state, local and international regulations regarding our business activities. Failure to comply with these regulations could result in, among other things, recalls of our products, substantial fines and criminal charges against us or against our employees. Furthermore, certain of our products could be subject to recall if the Food and Drug Administration, or the FDA, other regulators or we determine, for any reason, that those products are not safe or effective. Any recall or other regulatory action could increase our costs, damage our reputation, affect our ability to supply customers with the quantity of products they require and materially affect our operating results.
Actual or attempted breaches of security, unauthorized disclosure of information, denial of service attacks or the perception that personal and/or other sensitive or confidential information in our possession is not secure, could result in a material loss of business, substantial legal liability or significant harm to our reputation. We receive, collect, process, use and store a large amount of information from clients and our own employees, including personally identifiable, protected health and other sensitive and confidential information. This data is often accessed by us through transmissions over public and private networks, including the Internet. The secure transmission of such information over the Internet and other mechanisms is essential to maintain confidence in our information technology systems. We have implemented security measures, technical controls and contractual precautions designed to identify, detect and prevent unauthorized access, alteration, use or disclosure of our clients’, patients’ and employees’ data. However, the techniques used in these attacks change frequently and may be difficult to detect for periods of time and we may face difficulties in anticipating and implementing adequate preventative measures. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, we may face increased cybersecurity risks due to our reliance on internet technology and the number of our employees who are working remotely, which may create additional opportunities for cybercriminals to exploit vulnerabilities. Beyond external criminal activity, systems that access or control access to our services and databases may be compromised as a result of human error, fraud or malice on the part of employees or third parties, or may result from accidental technological failure. Because the techniques used to circumvent security systems can be highly sophisticated and change frequently, often are not recognized until launched against a target and may originate from less regulated and remote areas around the world, we may be unable to proactively address all possible techniques or implement adequate preventive measures for all situations.
If someone is able to circumvent or breach our security systems, they could steal any information located therein or cause serious and potentially long lasting disruption to our operations. Security breaches or attempts thereof could also damage our reputation and expose us to a risk of monetary loss and/or litigation, fines and sanctions. We also face risks associated with security breaches affecting third parties that conduct business with us or our clients and others who interact with our data. While we maintain insurance that covers certain security and privacy breaches, we may not carry appropriate insurance or maintain sufficient coverage to compensate for all potential liability.
We are subject to diverse laws and regulations relating to data privacy and security, including HIPAA and European data privacy laws. Complying with these numerous and complex regulations is expensive and difficult, and failure to comply with these regulations could result in regulatory scrutiny, fines and civil liability. In addition, any security breach or attempt thereof could result in liability for stolen assets or information, additional costs associated with repairing any system damage, incentives offered to clients or other business partners to maintain business relationships after a breach, and implementation of measures to prevent future breaches, including organizational changes, deployment of additional personnel and protection technologies, employee training and engagement of third-party experts and consultants. Additionally, the costs incurred to remediate any data security or privacy incident could be substantial.
We cannot assure you that any of our third-party service providers with access to our or our clients and/or employees’ personally identifiable and other sensitive or confidential information will maintain appropriate policies and practices regarding data privacy and security in compliance with all applicable laws or that they will not experience data security breaches or attempts thereof, which could have a corresponding effect on our business.
If there are interruptions or performance problems associated with our technology or infrastructure, our existing SaaS customers may experience service outages, and our new customers may experience delays in the deployment of our platform. We depend on services from various third parties as well as our own technical operations infrastructure to distribute our SaaS products via the Internet. If a service provider fails to provide sufficient capacity to support our platform or otherwise experiences service outages, such failure could interrupt our customers’ access to our service, which could adversely affect their perception of our platform's reliability and our revenues. Any disruptions in these services, including as a result of actions outside of our control, would significantly impact the continued performance of our SaaS products. In the future, these services may not be available to us on commercially reasonable terms, or at all. Any loss of the right to use any of these services could result in decreased functionality of our SaaS products until equivalent technology is either developed by us or, if available from another provider, is identified, obtained and integrated into our infrastructure.
To meet our business needs, we must maintain sufficient excess capacity in our operations infrastructure to ensure that our SaaS products are accessible. Design and mechanical errors, spikes in usage volume and failure to follow system protocols and procedures could cause our systems to fail, resulting in interruptions in our SaaS products. Any interruptions or delays in our service, whether or not caused by our products, or as a result of third-party error, our own error, natural disasters or security breaches, whether accidental or willful, could harm our relationships with customers and cause our revenue to decrease and/or our expenses to increase.
Any of the above circumstances or events may harm our reputation, cause customers to terminate their agreements with us, impair our ability to obtain contract renewals from existing customers, impair our ability to grow our customer base, result in the expenditure of significant financial, technical and engineering resources, subject us to financial penalties and liabilities under our service level agreements, and otherwise harm our business, results of operations and financial condition.
Product sales, introductions or modifications may be delayed or canceled as a result of FDA regulations or similar foreign regulations, which could cause our sales and profits to decline. Unless a product is exempt, before we can market or sell a new medical device in the United States, we must obtain FDA clearance or approval, which can be a lengthy and time-consuming process. We generally receive clearance from the FDA to market our products in the United States under Section 510(k) of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act or our products are exempt from the Section 510(k) clearance process. The 510(k) clearance process can be expensive, time-consuming and uncertain. In the 510(k) clearance process, the FDA must determine that a proposed device is “substantially equivalent” to a device legally on the market, known as a “predicate” device, with respect to intended use, technology and safety and effectiveness, in order to clear the proposed device for marketing. The FDA has a high degree of latitude when evaluating submissions and may determine that a proposed device submitted for 510(k) clearance is not substantially equivalent to a predicate device. After a device receives 510(k) premarket notification clearance from the FDA, any modification that could significantly affect its safety or effectiveness, or that would constitute a major change in the intended use of the device, technology, materials, packaging, and certain manufacturing processes may require a new 510(k) clearance or premarket approval. We have modified some of our Section 510(k) approved products without submitting new Section 510(k) notices, which we do not believe were required. However, if the FDA disagrees with us and requires us to submit new Section 510(k) notifications for modifications to our existing products, we may be required to stop marketing the products while the FDA reviews the Section 510(k) notification.
Any new product introduction or existing product modification could be subjected to a lengthier, more rigorous FDA examination process. For example, in certain cases we may need to conduct clinical trials of a new product before submitting a 510(k) notice. We may also be required to obtain premarket approvals for certain of our products. Indeed, recent trends in the FDA’s review of premarket notification submissions suggest that the FDA is often requiring manufacturers to provide new, more expansive, or different information regarding a particular device than what the manufacturer anticipated upon 510(k) submission. This has resulted in increasing uncertainty and delay in the premarket notification review process. For example, in November 2018, FDA officials announced forthcoming steps that the FDA intends to take to modernize the 510(k) premarket notification pathway. Among other things, the FDA announced that it plans to develop proposals to drive manufacturers utilizing the 510(k) pathway toward the use of newer predicates. These proposals include plans to potentially sunset certain older devices that were used as predicates under the 510(k) clearance pathway, and to potentially publish a list of devices that have been cleared on the basis of demonstrated substantial equivalence to predicate devices that are more than 10 years old. In September 2019, the FDA also issued revised final guidance establishing a “Safety and Performance Based Pathway” for “manufacturers of certain well-understood device types” allowing manufacturers to rely on objective safety and performance criteria recognized by the FDA to demonstrate substantial equivalence, obviating the need for manufacturers to compare the safety and performance of their medical devices to specific predicate devices in the clearance process. The FDA intends to develop and maintain a list of device types appropriate for the “safety and performance based” pathway and will continue to develop product-specific guidance documents that identify the performance criteria and recommended testing methodologies for each such device type, where feasible. Some of these proposals have not yet been finalized or adopted, and the FDA announced that it would seek public feedback prior to publication of any such proposals, and may work with Congress to implement such proposals through legislation. Accordingly, it is unclear the extent to which any proposals, if adopted, could impose additional regulatory requirements on us that could delay our ability to obtain new 510(k) clearances, increase the costs of compliance, or restrict our ability to maintain our current clearances, or otherwise create competition that may negatively affect our business.
The FDA’s ongoing review of the 510(k) program may make it more difficult for us to make modifications to our previously cleared products, either by imposing stricter requirements on when a manufacturer must submit a new 510(k) for a modification to a previously cleared product, or by applying more onerous review criteria to such submissions. FDA continues to review its 510(k) clearance process which could result in additional changes to regulatory requirements or guidance documents which could increase the costs of compliance, or restrict our ability to maintain current clearances. The requirements of the more rigorous premarket approval process and/or significant changes to the 510(k) clearance process could delay product introductions and increase the costs associated with FDA compliance. Marketing and sale of our products outside the United States are also subject to regulatory clearances and approvals, and if we fail to obtain these regulatory approvals, our sales could suffer. We cannot assure you that any new products we develop will receive required regulatory approvals from U.S. or foreign regulatory agencies.
We are subject to substantial regulation related to quality standards applicable to our manufacturing and quality processes. Our failure to comply with these standards could have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition, or results of operations. The FDA regulates the approval, manufacturing, and sales and marketing of many of our products in the United States. Significant government regulation also exists in Canada, Japan, Europe, and other countries in which we conduct business. As a device manufacturer, we are required to register with the FDA and are subject to periodic inspection by the FDA for compliance with the FDA’s Quality System Regulation requirements, which require manufacturers of medical devices to adhere to certain regulations, including testing, quality control and documentation procedures. In addition, the federal Medical Device Reporting regulations require us to provide information to the FDA whenever there is evidence that reasonably suggests that a device may have caused or contributed to a death or serious injury or, if a malfunction were to occur, could cause or contribute to a death or serious injury. Compliance with applicable regulatory requirements is subject to continual review and is rigorously monitored through periodic inspections by the FDA. In the European Community, we are required to maintain certain ISO certifications in order to sell our products and must undergo periodic inspections by notified bodies to obtain and maintain these certifications. Failure to comply with current governmental regulations and quality assurance guidelines could lead to temporary manufacturing shutdowns, product recalls or related field actions, product shortages or delays in product manufacturing. Efficacy or safety concerns, an increase in trends of adverse events in the marketplace, and/or manufacturing quality issues with respect to our products could lead to product recalls or related field actions, withdrawals, and/or declining sales.
Disruptions at the FDA and other government agencies caused by funding shortages or global health concerns could hinder their ability to hire, retain or deploy key leadership and other personnel, or otherwise prevent new or modified products from being developed, cleared or approved or commercialized in a timely manner or at all, which could negatively impact our business. The ability of the FDA to review and clear or approve new products can be affected by a variety of factors, including government budget and funding levels, statutory, regulatory, and policy changes, the FDA’s ability to hire and retain key personnel and accept the payment of user fees, and other events that may otherwise affect the FDA’s ability to perform routine functions. Average review times at the FDA have fluctuated in recent years as a result. In addition, government funding of other government agencies that fund research and development activities is subject to the political process, which is inherently fluid and unpredictable. Disruptions at the FDA and other agencies may also slow the time necessary for medical devices or modifications to cleared or approved medical devices to be reviewed and/or approved by necessary government agencies, which would adversely affect our business. For example, over the last several years, including for 35 days beginning on December 22, 2018, the U.S. government has shut down several times and certain regulatory agencies, such as the FDA, have had to furlough critical FDA employees and stop critical activities.
Separately, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, on March 10, 2020, the FDA announced its intention to postpone most foreign inspections of manufacturing facilities, and subsequently, on March 18, 2020, the FDA temporarily postponed routine surveillance inspections of domestic manufacturing facilities. Regulatory authorities outside the United States may adopt similar restrictions or other policy measures in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Subsequently, on July 10, 2020, the FDA announced its intention to resume certain on-site inspections of domestic manufacturing facilities subject to a risk-based prioritization system. The FDA intends to use this risk-based assessment system to identify the categories of regulatory activity that can occur within a given geographic area, ranging from mission critical inspections to resumption of all regulatory activities. If a prolonged government shutdown occurs, or if global health concerns continue to prevent the FDA or other regulatory authorities from conducting their regular inspections, reviews, or other regulatory activities, it could significantly impact the ability of the FDA or other regulatory authorities to timely review and process our regulatory submissions, which could have a material adverse effect on our business.
Laws regulating consumer contacts could adversely affect our business operations or create liabilities. Our business activities include contacts with consumers in different parts of the world. Certain laws, such as the U.S. Telephone Consumer Protection Act, regulate telemarketing practices and certain automated outbound contacts with consumers, such as phone calls, texts or emails. Our use of outbound contacts may be restricted by existing laws, or by laws, regulations, or regulatory decisions that may be adopted in the future. Similarly, the new California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 requires disclosure of our privacy practices to consumers. If we are found to have violated these laws or regulations, we may be subjected to substantial fines, penalties, or liabilities to consumers.
Our products are the subject of clinical trials conducted by us, our competitors, or other third parties, the results of which may be unfavorable, or perceived as unfavorable, and could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, and results of operations. As a part of the regulatory process to obtain marketing clearance for new products and new indications for existing products, or for other reasons, we conduct and participate in numerous clinical trials with a variety of study designs, patient populations, and trial endpoints. We, our competitors, or other third parties may also conduct clinical trials involving our commercially marketed products. The results of clinical trials may be unfavorable or inconsistent with previous findings, or could identify safety signals associated with our products. Current or future clinical trials may not meet primary endpoints, may reveal disadvantages of our products and solutions for various markets we address, or could generate unfavorable or inconsistent clinical data. Clinical data, or the market’s or regulatory bodies’ perception of the clinical data, may adversely impact our ability to obtain product clearances or approvals, and our position in, and share of, the markets in which we participate. Moreover, if these clinical trials identify serious safety issues associated with our marketed products, potentially adverse consequences could result, including that regulatory authorities could withdraw clearances or approvals of our products, we could be required to halt the marketing and sales of our products or recall our products, we could be required to update our product labeling with additional warnings, we could be sued and held liable for harm caused to patients, and our reputation may suffer. Any of these could have a material adverse impact on our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
Off-label marketing of our products could result in substantial penalties. The FDA strictly regulates the promotional claims that may be made about FDA-cleared products. In particular, clearance under Section 510(k) only permits us to market our products for the uses indicated on the labeling cleared by the FDA. We may request additional label indications for our current products, and the FDA may deny those requests outright, require additional expensive clinical data to support any additional indications or impose limitations on the intended use of any cleared products as a condition of clearance. If the FDA determines that we have marketed our products for off-label use, we could be subject to fines, injunctions or other penalties. It is also possible that other federal, state or foreign enforcement authorities might take action if they consider our business activities to constitute promotion of an off-label use, which could result in significant penalties, including, but not limited to, criminal, civil and administrative penalties, damages, fines, disgorgement, exclusion from participation in government healthcare programs, and the curtailment of our operations. Any of these events could significantly harm our business and results of operations and cause our stock price to decline.
Disruptions in the supply of components from our suppliers could result in a significant reduction in sales and profitability. We purchase configured components for our devices from various suppliers, including some who are single-source suppliers for us. Disruptions to our suppliers, including disruptions in connection with the novel strain of coronavirus (COVID-19), may limit our ability to manufacture our devices in a timely or cost-effective manner, which could result in a significant reduction in sales and profitability. We cannot assure you that a replacement supplier would be able to configure its components for our devices on a timely basis or, in the alternative, that we would be able to reconfigure our devices to integrate the replacement part. A reduction or halt in supply while a replacement supplier reconfigures its components, or while we reconfigure our devices for the replacement part, would limit our ability to manufacture our devices in a timely or cost-effective manner, which could result in a significant reduction in sales and profitability. We cannot assure you that our inventories would be adequate to meet our production needs during any prolonged interruption of supply.
If we fail to attract develop and retain key employees our business may suffer. Our ability to compete effectively depends on our ability to attract and retain key employees, including people in senior management, sales, marketing, technology and R&D positions. Competition for top talent in the healthcare industry can be intense. Our ability to recruit and retain such talent will depend on a number of factors, including hiring practices of our competitors, compensation and benefits, work location, work environment and industry economic conditions. If we cannot effectively recruit, develop and retain qualified employees to drive our strategic goals, our business could suffer.
We are subject to potential product liability claims that may exceed the scope and amount of our insurance coverage, which would expose us to liability for uninsured claims. We are subject to potential product liability claims as a result of the design, manufacture and marketing of medical devices. Any product liability claim brought against us, with or without merit, could result in the increase of our product liability insurance rates. In addition, we would have to pay any amount awarded by a court in excess of our policy limits. Our insurance policies have various exclusions, and thus we may be subject to a product liability claim for which we have no insurance coverage, in which case, we may have to pay the entire amount of any award. We cannot assure you that our insurance coverage will be adequate or that all claims brought against us will be covered by our insurance and we cannot assure you that we will be able to obtain insurance in the future on terms acceptable to us or at all. A successful product liability claim brought against us in excess of our insurance coverage, if any, may require us to pay substantial amounts, which could harm our business.
If our SaaS products fail to perform properly and if we fail to develop enhancements, we could lose customers, become subject to service performance or warranty claims and our market share could decline. Our SaaS operations are dependent upon our ability to prevent system interruptions and, as we continue to grow, we will need to devote additional resources to improving our infrastructure in order to maintain the performance of our products and solutions. The applications underlying our SaaS products are inherently complex and may contain material defects or errors, which may cause disruptions in availability or other performance problems. We have from time to time found defects in our products and may discover additional defects in the future that could result in data unavailability, unauthorized access to, loss, corruption or other harm to our customers’ data. While we implement bug fixes and upgrades as part of our regularly scheduled system maintenance, we may not be able to detect and correct defects or errors before implementing our products and solutions. Consequently, we or our customers may discover defects or errors after our products and solutions have been deployed. If we fail to perform timely maintenance or if customers are otherwise dissatisfied with the frequency and/or duration of our maintenance services and related system outages, our existing customers could elect not to renew their contracts, delay or withhold payment, or potential customers may not adopt our products and solutions and our brand and reputation could be harmed. In addition, the occurrence of any material defects, errors, disruptions in service or other performance problems with our software could result in warranty or other legal claims against us and diversion of our resources. The costs incurred in addressing and correcting any material defects or errors in our software and expanding our infrastructure and architecture in order to accommodate increased demand for our products and solutions may be substantial and could adversely affect our operating results.
Our intellectual property may not protect our products, and/or our products may infringe on the intellectual property rights of third-parties. We rely on a combination of patents, trade secrets and non-disclosure agreements to protect our intellectual property. Our success depends, in part, on our ability to obtain and maintain United States and foreign patent protection for our products, their uses and our processes to preserve our trade secrets and to operate without infringing on the proprietary rights of third-parties. We have a number of pending patent applications, and we do not know whether any patents will issue from any of these applications. We do not know whether any of the claims in our issued patents or pending applications will provide us with any significant protection against competitive products or otherwise be commercially valuable. Legal standards regarding the validity of patents and the proper scope of their claims are still evolving, and there is no consistent law or policy regarding the valid breadth of claims. Additionally, there may be third-party patents, patent applications and other intellectual property relevant to our products and technology which are not known to us and that block or compete with our products. We face the risks that:
third-parties will infringe our intellectual property rights;
our non-disclosure agreements will be breached;
we will not have adequate remedies for infringement;
our trade secrets will become known to or independently developed by our competitors; or
third-parties will be issued patents that may prevent the sale of our products or require us to license and pay fees or royalties in order for us to be able to market some of our products.
Litigation may be necessary to enforce patents issued to us, to protect our proprietary rights, or to defend third-party claims that we have infringed on proprietary rights of others. If the outcome of any litigation or proceeding brought against us were adverse, we could be subject to significant liabilities to third-parties, could be required to obtain licenses from third-parties, could be forced to design around the patents at issue or could be required to cease sales of the affected products. A license may not be available at all or on commercially viable terms, and we may not be able to redesign our products to avoid infringement. Additionally, the laws regarding the enforceability of patents vary from country to country, and we cannot assure you that any patent issues we face will be uniformly resolved, or that local laws will provide us with consistent rights and benefits.
Tax laws, regulations, and enforcement practices are evolving and may have a material adverse effect on our results of operations, cash flows and financial position. Tax laws, regulations, and administrative practices in various jurisdictions are evolving and may be subject to significant changes due to economic, political, and other conditions. There are many transactions that occur during the ordinary course of business for which the ultimate tax determination is uncertain, and significant judgment is required in evaluating and estimating our provision and accruals for taxes. Governments are increasingly focused on ways to increase tax revenues, particularly from multinational corporations, which may lead to an increase in audit activity and aggressive positions taken by tax authorities.
Changes or clarifications to U.S. tax laws could materially affect the tax treatment of our domestic and foreign earnings. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, an international association of 34 countries, including the United States, released the final reports from its Base Erosion and Profit Shifting, or BEPS, Action Plans, which aim to standardize and modernize global tax policies. The BEPS Action Plans propose revisions to numerous tax rules, including country-by-country reporting, permanent establishment, hybrid entities and instruments, transfer pricing, and tax treaties. The BEPS Action Plans have been or are being enacted by countries where we have operations.
Developments in relevant tax laws, regulations, administrative practices and enforcement practices could have a material adverse effect on our operating results, financial position and cash flows, including the need to obtain additional financing.
We are subject to tax audits by various tax authorities in many jurisdictions. Our income tax returns are based on calculations and assumptions that require significant judgment, and are subject to audit by various tax authorities. In addition, the calculation of our tax liabilities involves dealing with uncertainties in the application of complex tax laws. We regularly assess the potential outcomes of examinations by tax authorities in determining the adequacy of our provision for income taxes.
In connection with the audit by the Australian Taxation Office, or ATO, for the tax years 2009 to 2013, we received Notices of Amended Assessments in March 2018. Based on these assessments, the ATO asserted that we owe $151.7 million in additional income tax and $38.4 million in accrued interest. We agreed to a payment arrangement with the ATO, whereby an amount of $75.9 million was paid by us in April 2018, with the remaining amounts due only if we are unsuccessful in defending our position. In June 2018, we received a notice from the ATO claiming penalties of 50% of the additional income tax that was assessed or $75.9 million. In accordance with the payment arrangement, all remaining tax, interest and penalty amounts outstanding are due only if we are unsuccessful in defending our position. We do not agree with the ATO’s assessments and intend to pursue administrative and legal steps to defend our position. We continue to believe we are more likely than not to be successful in defending our position. However, if we are not successful, there may be material changes to our past or future taxable income, tax payable or deferred tax assets, we will not receive a refund of the $75.9 million we paid in April 2018, and we will be required to pay penalties and interest that could materially adversely affect our financial results. The ATO is currently auditing tax years 2014 to 2018 and may advance the position that additional taxes are owed for those years as well.
Our quarterly operating results are subject to fluctuation for a variety of reasons. Our operating results have, from time to time, fluctuated on a quarterly basis and may be subject to similar fluctuations in the future. These fluctuations may result from a number of factors, including:
the introduction of new products by us or our competitors;
the geographic mix of product sales;
the success and costs of our marketing efforts in new regions;
changes in third-party payor reimbursement;
timing of regulatory clearances and approvals;
costs associated with acquiring and integrating new businesses, technologies and product offerings;
timing of orders by distributors;
expenditures incurred for research and development;
competitive pricing in different regions;
the effect of foreign currency transaction gains or losses; and
other activities of our competitors.
Fluctuations in our quarterly operating results may cause the market price of our common stock to fluctuate.
If a natural or man-made disaster strikes our manufacturing facilities, we will be unable to manufacture our products for a substantial amount of time and our sales and profitability will decline. Our facilities and the manufacturing equipment we use to produce our products would be costly to replace and could require substantial lead-time to repair or replace. The facilities may be affected by natural or man-made disasters, including COVID-19 that has spread globally, and in the event they were affected by a disaster, we would be forced to rely on third-party manufacturers. Although we believe we possess adequate insurance for the disruption of our business from causalities, such insurance may not be sufficient to cover all of our potential losses and may not continue to be available to us on acceptable terms, or at all.
Delaware law and provisions in our charter and could make it difficult for another company to acquire us. Provisions of our certificate of incorporation may have the effect of delaying or preventing changes in control or management which might be beneficial to us or our security holders. In particular, our board of directors has the authority to issue up to 2,000,000 shares of preferred stock and to determine the price, rights, preferences, privileges and restrictions, including voting rights, of those shares without further vote or action by the stockholders. The rights of the holders of our common stock will be subject to, and may be adversely affected by, the rights of the holders of any preferred stock that may be issued in the future. The issuance of preferred stock may have the effect of delaying, deferring or preventing a change in control, may discourage bids for our common stock at a premium over the market price of our common stock and may adversely affect the market price of our common stock and the voting and other rights of the holders of our common stock.
You may not be able to enforce the judgments of U.S. courts against some of our assets or officers and directors. A substantial portion of our assets are located outside the United States. Additionally, some of our directors and executive officers reside outside the United States, along with all or a substantial portion of their assets. As a result, it may not be possible for investors to enforce judgments of U.S. courts relating to any liabilities under U.S. securities laws against our assets, those persons or their assets. In addition, investors may not be able to pursue claims based on U.S. securities laws against these assets or these persons in non-U.S. courts, where most of these assets and persons reside.
We are increasingly dependent on information technology systems and infrastructure. Our technology systems are potentially vulnerable to breakdown or other interruption by fire, power loss, system malfunction, unauthorized access and other events. Likewise, data privacy breaches by employees and others with both permitted and unauthorized access to our systems may pose a risk that sensitive data may be exposed to unauthorized persons or to the public, or may be permanently lost. While we have invested heavily in the protection of data and information technology and in related training, there can be no assurance that our efforts will prevent significant breakdowns, breaches in our systems or other cyber incidents that could have a material adverse effect upon the reputation, business, operations or financial condition of the company. In addition, significant implementation issues may arise as we continue to consolidate and outsource certain computer operations and application support activities.
Our results of operations may be materially affected by global economic conditions generally, including conditions in the financial markets. Recently, concerns over inflation, energy costs, geopolitical issues, the availability and cost of credit, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the ability of sovereign nations to pay their debts have contributed to increased volatility and diminished expectations for the economy and the financial markets going forward. These factors, combined with volatile commodity prices, declining business and consumer confidence and increased unemployment, have precipitated an economic slowdown. It is difficult to predict how long the current economic conditions will continue and whether the economic conditions will continue to deteriorate. If the economic climate in the United States or outside the United States continues to deteriorate or there is a shift in government spending priorities, customers or potential customers could reduce or delay their purchases, which could impact our revenue, our ability to manage inventory levels, collect customer receivables, and ultimately decrease our profitability.
Our leverage and debt service obligations could adversely affect our business. As of June 30, 2020, our total consolidated debt was $1.2 billion. We may incur additional indebtedness in the future. Our indebtedness could have adverse consequences, including:
making it more difficult to satisfy our financial obligations;
increasing our vulnerability to adverse economic, regulatory and industry conditions;
limiting our ability to compete and our flexibility in planning for, or reacting to, changes in our business and the industry in which we operate;
limiting our ability to borrow additional funds for working capital, capital expenditure, acquisitions and general corporate or other purposes; and
exposing us to greater interest rate risk.
Our debt service obligations will require us to use a portion of our operating cash flow to pay interest and principal in indebtedness, which could impede our growth. Our ability to make payments on, and to refinance, our indebtedness, and to fund capital expenditures will depend on our ability to generate cash in the future. This is subject to general economic, financial, competitive, legislative, regulatory, and other factors, many of which are beyond our control.
We may be adversely affected by recent proposals to reform LIBOR. Certain of our financial arrangements, including credit facilities, are made at variable interest rates that use the London Interbank Offered Rate, or LIBOR (or metrics derived from or related to LIBOR), as a benchmark for establishing the interest rate. On July 27, 2017, the United Kingdom’s Financial Conduct Authority announced that it intends to stop persuading or compelling banks to submit LIBOR rates after 2021. These reforms may cause LIBOR to cease to exist, new methods of calculating LIBOR to be established, or alternative reference rates to be established. The Alternative Reference Rates Committee (ARRC) has proposed that the Secured Overnight Financing Rate (SOFR) is the rate that represents best practice as the alternative to LIBOR for use in financial and other derivatives contracts that are currently indexed to United States dollar LIBOR. ARRC has proposed a paced market transition plan to SOFR from LIBOR, and organizations are currently working on industry wide and company specific transition plans as it relates to financial and other derivative contracts exposed to LIBOR. Uncertainty exists as to the transition process and broad acceptance of SOFR as the primary alternative to LIBOR, and the potential consequences to us cannot be fully predicted. Changes in market interest rates may influence our financing costs, returns on financial investments and the valuation of derivative contracts and could reduce our earnings and cash flows.
We may impair intangible assets, such as goodwill. We have recorded intangible assets, including goodwill in connection with our acquisitions. At least on an annual basis, we will evaluate whether facts and circumstances indicate any impairment of the values of these intangible assets. As circumstances change, we cannot assure you that the value of these intangible assets will be realized by us. If we determine that a significant impairment has occurred, we will be required to write-off the impaired portion of intangible assets, which could have a material adverse effect on our results of operations in the period in which the write-off occurs.
ITEM 1B UNRESOLVED STAFF COMMENTS
We have received no written comments regarding our periodic or current reports from the staff of the SEC that were issued 180 days or more before the end of our fiscal year 2020 that remain unresolved.
ITEM 2 PROPERTIES
We conduct our operations in both owned and leased properties. Our principal executive offices and U.S. sales facilities consist of approximately 230,000 square feet and are located on Spectrum Center Boulevard in San Diego, California, in a building we own. We have our primary research and development facilities, as well as office and manufacturing facilities at our owned site in Sydney, Australia. Other facilities are leased in Atlanta, Georgia, and Moreno Valley, California, U.S.A.; Loyang and Galaxis, Singapore; Munich, Germany; Lyon, France; Suzhou, China; and Johor Bahru, Malaysia. We are establishing a new manufacturing facility in Tuas, Singapore that will eventually replace our Loyang facility.
We believe that our facilities are adequate to meet the needs of our current business operations. At June 30, 2020, our principal owned and leased properties were as follows:
|
|
|
|
|
|
Location |
Ownership Status |
Square |
|
Primary Usage |
|
|
San Diego, California |
Owned |
230,000 |
|
Corporate headquarters, sales and administration |
|
Sydney, Australia |
Owned |
224,000 |
|
Manufacturing, engineering, research and development, sales and administration |
|
Suzhou, China |
Owned |
53,000 |
|
Manufacturing, engineering, research and development |
|
Atlanta, Georgia |
Leased |
522,000 |
|
Warehouse and distribution; SaaS sales and administration, engineering, research and development |
|
Moreno Valley, California |
Leased |
244,000 |
|
Warehouse and distribution |
|
Tuas, Singapore |
Leased |
268,000 |
|
Future manufacturing facility, currently being established |
|
Munich, Germany |
Leased |
109,000 |
|
Sales and distribution |
|
Loyang, Singapore |
Leased |
95,000 |
|
Manufacturing facility, engineering, research and development |
|
Minneapolis, United States |
Leased |
86,000 |
|
SaaS sales and administration, engineering, research and development |
|
Chatsworth, California |
Leased |
72,000 |
|
Motor manufacturing, engineering, research and development |
|
Lyon, France |
Leased |
52,000 |
|
Sales and distribution |
|
Halifax, Canada |
Leased |
47,000 |
|
Engineering, research and development |
|
Johor Bahru, Malaysia |
Leased |
46,000 |
|
Engineering, research and development |
ITEM 3 LEGAL PROCEEDINGS
We are involved in various legal proceedings, claims, investigations and litigation that arise in the ordinary course of our business. We investigate these matters as they arise, and accrue estimates for resolution of legal and other contingencies in accordance with Statement of Financial Accounting Standard No. 5. See Note 17 – Legal Actions, Contingencies and Commitments of the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements (Part II, Item 8) included in this report.
Litigation is inherently uncertain. Accordingly, we cannot predict with certainty the outcome of these matters. But we do not expect the outcome of these matters to have a material adverse effect on our consolidated financial statements when taken as a whole.
ITEM 4 MINE SAFETY DISCLOSURES
Not Applicable.
PART II
ITEM 5 MARKET FOR REGISTRANT’S COMMON EQUITY, RELATED STOCKHOLDER MATTERS AND ISSUER PURCHASES OF EQUITY SECURITIES
Our common stock is traded on the NYSE under the symbol “RMD”. As of July 31, 2020, there were 26 holders of record of our common stock, although the actual number of stockholders of our common stock is greater than this number of holders of record and many of these holders of record own shares as nominees on behalf of other beneficial owners.
Securities Authorized for Issuance Under Equity Compensation Plans
The information included under Item 12 of Part III of this Report, “Security Ownership of Certain Beneficial Owners and Management and Related Stockholder Matters,” is hereby incorporated by reference into this Item 5 of Part II of this Report.