Davstar Signs Distribution Deal

Davstar Industries Ltd. said Thursday that it has signed a multiyear distribution contract to sell its brand-name Cen-Slide 60 urinalysis system to doctors, nurses and hospitals across the nation.

The Newport Beach company, which introduced the product last fall, said Curtin Matheson Scientific Inc. has agreed to distribute the system nationally along with Davstar’s current regional distributors in the West, the South and the Northeast.

Davstar, which makes disposable medical devices, hopes that sales of the Cen-Slide will garner $60 million in revenue over the next three years, Chairman Jerry Silver said. The company had sales of about $4.5 million last year, he said, but reported only $768,000 in revenue for the first quarter.

“There are about 200 million urinalyses done every year,” Silver said, “and we hope to capture a nice percentage of that market.”

He said that Curtin Matheson, a leading manufacturing and supply company, expects to launch national sales within a month.

Davstar’s stock, once trading at more than $12 a share, was hit hard on Wall Street last fall after Barron’s magazine accused the company of pumping up its stock price through misleading press releases. The stock closed Thursday at $6.625 a share, up 50 cents a share, on the American Stock Exchange.