Michael Korenko, the chief executive of medical device company Vivos, has acquired $11,420 (£8,800) worth of ordinary shares in the business, according to a regulatory filing published on Tuesday. The transaction, conducted on the open market, is the latest insider purchase by a senior executive at the firm, which specialises in oral appliance therapies for sleep apnoea.
The purchase comes at a time when Vivos shares have been under pressure, declining roughly 12% over the past three months amid a broader rotation out of small-cap healthcare stocks. Analysts at Shore Capital noted that insider buying can be a signal of management's conviction in the company's near-term prospects, though they cautioned that individual transactions should not be read in isolation.
Vivos, which is listed on the OTC market in the United States and also trades on the Frankfurt exchange, has been working to expand its distribution network in Europe and Asia. The company reported revenues of $24.6 million in its most recent fiscal year, up from $19.1 million the prior year, though it remains loss-making at the operating level.
For UK investors, the transaction serves as a reminder that insider buying patterns can offer limited signals, particularly in smaller companies where liquidity is thin. The FTSE 250, by contrast, was trading broadly flat on Tuesday at 20,540, with the healthcare sector index down 0.3% as investors awaited quarterly earnings from larger pharmaceutical groups.
Industry analysts said that while the CEO's purchase is positive for sentiment, the company still faces headwinds from regulatory hurdles in key markets and competition from larger sleep apnoea device manufacturers. Vivos shares last traded at $2.87, giving the company a market capitalisation of approximately $87 million.