Trimedyne Cites Research Costs in Reporting Loss

Citing continued heavy spending on research and new product development, Trimedyne, a Santa Ana medical laser equipment maker, announced losses of $196,000 for its third quarter despite record sales in the period. The quarterly loss was about half of the $342,000 the company lost in the year-earlier period.

For the three months ended June 30, the company had sales of $1.1 million, up about 12% from $982,000 a year earlier.

For the first nine months of its 1985 fiscal year, Trimedyne lost $720,000, compared to a loss of $1.2 million last year. Revenues for the period were $3 million, a 25% increase over the $2.4 million recorded a year ago.

Trimedyne president Michael Henson said the five-year-old company has spent about $700,000 this year on research to develop laser surgery systems to replace traditional heart bypass operations. Without that expense, he said, Trimedyne would be approaching the break-even point.

“We had a decision to make. Did we want to be a small, profitable company or lose money while developing products for the long haul? We chose the latter,” Henson said.

Within the last few months, Trimedyne has gotten approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to begin testing two laser systems on patients with atherosclerosis. The procedures, designed ultimately to replace costly and traumatic heart bypass surgeries, use laser energy to vaporize fatty deposits and other material that block blood vessels and cause atherosclerosis.