A couple of Orange County medical laser makers has taken divergent paths on Wall Street.
IntraLase Corp., an Irvine-based maker of devices and software used in laser eye surgery, made its public debut earlier this month.
Shares of IntraLase, which trade on Nasdaq, opened at 13 and rose as much as 25% on their first day of trading.
IntraLase’s offering of about 6.6 million shares raised $86 million, according to Banc of America Securities LLC, the lead underwriter.
The device maker said it plans to use the proceeds for sales and marketing, research and development, global expansion and general purposes.
Another laser maker, San Clemente-based BioLase Technology Inc., recently cut its outlook for the third and fourth quarters.
BioLase, which makes dental lasers, said it expects to post a loss in the third quarter on revenue of some $12 million.
For the fourth quarter, BioLase said it expected sales of $17 million to $20 million, compared to an earlier forecast of $23 million to $25 million.
The company blamed the revision on fewer orders resulting in poor attendance or cancelled trade shows in Florida and New Orleans because of the recent hurricanes.
BioLase also is coming out with a new Waterlase MD device that the company said caused customers to postpone orders.
Investors hit the company’s stock, sending BioLase shares tumbling by nearly 18% to their lowest level in more than 18 months.
BioLase is set to report third-quarter results on Oct. 27.
Ista Shuffles Board
Ista Pharmaceuticals Inc., an eye drug maker out of Irvine, shuffled its board of directors.
Richard Williams, Ista’s lead independent director, became its chairman during summer, replacing Robert McNeil, who resigned.
McNeil is managing director at Sanderling Ventures of San Mateo, an Ista investor.
Jeffrey Edwards, Allergan Inc.’s corporate vice president, corporate development, also stepped down from Ista’s board.
Ista recently reacquired the rights to Vitrase, an Allergan eye drug for $10 million.
Dean Mitchell, vice president of strategy at Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., and Rolf Classon, who retired earlier this year as chairman of Bayer HealthCare, joined Ista’s board as independent directors.
Ista Chief Executive Vicente Anido Jr. said the drug maker “was privileged to receive (Mitchell’s and Classon’s) expert counsel just at the time we are introducing our first products to the marketplace.”
The drug maker’s board stays at nine members.
Biotech Partnering
The cost of bringing drugs to market calls for more partnering between traditional drug makers and biotechnology companies, suggests Ned Israelsen, a managing partner with Knobbe, Martens, Olson & Bear LLP, an Irvine-based intellectual property law firm.
Israelsen made his remarks during Bio-Network 2004, held earlier this month at the Ritz-Carlton Laguna Niguel.
BioNetwork, which had more than 300 people attending, seeks to link the drug and the biotech industries.
In his talk, Israelsen pointed out that there was a connection between increasing investment required to bring a new drug to market, rising biomedical research spending and a trend of decreasing new product submissions to the Food and Drug Administration during the past decade.
“However, while the number of new drugs seeking FDA approval has been dropping over the last 10 years, the research and development investment for each new drug has increased dramatically,” Israelsen said.
“Because of this, collaborations and partnerships between biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies will become more and more critical to help the industry bring more medical advances to the marketplace,” he said.
Israelsen is also a member of the Tech Coast Angels, a group of investors that focuses part of its work on early stage life science companies.
Bits and Pieces:
Anaheim Memorial Medical Center said it is serving as a beta test site for SafeTGlow, a lighting system that is meant to, among other things, help meet a Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations’ goal to reduce the risk of patient harm resulting from falls. PrimeTech, a Huntington Beach company, distributes the system Electronic Medical Solutions, Newport Beach, said it unveiled an updated Web site. Electronic Medical Solutions, which was founded by Drs. Oleg Chikovani and William Dobkin, neurosurgeons who practice at Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian, is designed to help patients gain more information about their health; the company’s database currently covers around 1,800 diseases and conditions and 20,000 symptoms.
