Luther Medical Reworking Product to Satisfy British Firm

Luther Medical Products Inc., a Santa Ana-based medical products maker, said acquisition talks with a major British firm have been placed on hold while it reworks its newest product--a unique plastic material for use in catheters.

Tests by BOC Group PLC, a British medical equipment firm that has been negotiating to purchase Luther or the right to sell the Santa Ana company’s products, showed that the catheter material was too sensitive to alcohol, said Ronald Luther, the company’s founder and chairman.

Luther, which also makes “peel away” needles and catheters, has exclusive rights to the new material, which is rigid but softens and expands when inserted into the body. The proposed catheter would reduce bleeding and the risk of infection during infusion, Luther said.

But tests in Sweden by BOC Group showed that the material was too sensitive to alcohol for European standards, Luther said.

The British firm sent the material back to see if Luther Medical can “reformulate it to make it more alcohol-resistant,” Luther said. The company is working on the reformulation, even though the product would not be considered too alcohol-sensitive for the U.S. market, he said. It also is starting to test its new material in animals, he said.

Meantime, Luther Medical has yet to post a profit after six years in business. Luther said his company expects to post a net loss of about $300,000 for the fiscal year ended June 30, compared to last year’s net loss of $671,000.

For the 1987 fiscal year, however, Luther said he expects to post an annual profit and “to double sales or more than double sales . . . making it our first $1-million year.”