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Ista conducting strategic review, may consider merger or buyout later this year
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Ista Pharmaceuticals has hired a bank to conduct a strategic review of the company's current performance capabilities and to explore the possibility of a merger or buyout, said Vicente Anido Jr., PhD, Ista's president and CEO, in a webcast at the Bank of America 2008 Health Care Conference in Las Vegas.
"We're looking at our strategic plan, where we've outlined it for our board. We're putting evaluation on that particular plan. We're doing a risk analysis of that plan," he said. "As our stock prices continue to drop, we've had a lot of interest in the company. It ranges from companies coming in wanting to look at buying the company to doing reverse mergers."
Dr. Anido said that some of the interested parties are non-ophthalmic companies that have some ophthalmic assets in their portfolios.
"There is no specific timeline," Dr. Anido said. "But we do have a natural conception point, if you will, in the sense that come July 1, the convertible debt that we have in place goes curved. And so we're going to renegotiate the terms of [the debt]. It would be a natural point to try to come to some conclusion."
Ista reported in a recent press release $15.5 million in net revenue for the first quarter, a 51% increase compared with $10.3 million for the first quarter of 2007. However, despite the increased revenue, the company posted a net loss of $13 million, or $0.39 per share, for the quarter, compared with a net loss of $11.5 million, or $0.44 per share, for the same period last year.
Net revenue from sales of Xibrom (bromfenac ophthalmic solution 0.09%) totaled $11.8 million for the quarter, up 69% compared with $7 million for the first quarter of 2007. First-quarter revenue from sales of Istalol (timolol maleate 0.5%) rose 23% to $2.7 million, while revenues from Vitrase (hyaluronidase) sales declined 10% to total $0.9 million.
Ista plans to launch three products in 2009: a revised label for Xibrom in a once-daily dose, T-Pred (prednisolone acetate 1%, tobramycin 0.3%) and once- and twice-daily formulations of Bepreve (bepotastine ophthalmic solution).
"We clearly had our problems with the FDA over the past 12 months [regarding T-Pred], and we're trying to get back on track," Dr. Anido said in the webcast.