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Boston Business Journal July 21, 2003
In new vein:
Cardiotech to test blood vessel substitute Woburn-based CardioTech International Inc. has gotten a new start. The company, which manufactures implantable medical devices as well as medical grade materials used in the making of devices, ended fiscal 2003 with improved financials, reducing its loss by 51 percent, from nearly $2 million the year before to $963,000. And last week, its new Rancho Santa Margarita, Calif.-based subsidiary, Gish Biomedical Inc., signed a major distribution agreement that will put its line of heart and lung products in six Midwest states. CardioTech aims to be profitable by fourth-quarter 2004. While sales were $3.4 million in fiscal 2003, the company's chairman and chief executive officer, Michael Szycher, said he expects sales to balloon to $23 million in 2004 because the acquisition of Gish was not official until fiscal 2004 had begun. "As you can imagine, there's a lot of excitement in the company," he said. Szycher was the founder and chairman of PolyMedica Corp., and he spun out CardioTech seven years ago as a separate entity to focus on biomaterials and medical devices. After making three acquisitions recently, and working to consolidate them into the core business throughout 2003, the company is focusing on product in 2004. Namely, a synthetic coronary artery bypass graft made with the company's proprietary polyurethane that so closely resembles human collagen in coronary arteries that the body doesn't reject it. Szycher says all of the big players, such as Johnson & Johnson of New Brunswick, N.J., Guidant Corp. of Indianapolis and Natick-based Boston Scientific Corp., have tried to make such products, but haven't been able to find the right materials. He believes he has. "If this is a truly breakthrough device, the FDA will do an expedited review," Szycher said. In the meantime, CardioTech is not yet profitable because it is paying for clinical trials on its own, Szycher said. The company is about to begin enrolling 100 patients for its latest trial, and approval could take as long as five years because the last patient to receive the graft must be followed for one year. In the
coming months, the company hopes to unveil a wound-dressing product and
find a corporate partner to distribute it.
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