The best thing you can say about Angiotech Pharmaceutical Inc.’s (NSDQ:ANPI) fourth quarter is that it’s over.
The Vancouver-based maker of paclitaxel, the drug used in Boston Scientific Corp.’s (NYSE:BSX) Taxus coronary stent systems, said net losses widened during the three months ended Dec. 31, 2010, rising to $11.8 million. That’s a 37 percent increase from the $8 million Angiotech lost during the same period in 2009.
The company attributed the losses to a continued, downward slide of royalty revenues from Taxus sales, which declined by 59 percent during the quarter to just more than $6 million (compared to $13.5 million during Q4 2009). Angiotech reaps around 6 percent of the net sales of Taxus stents worldwide from royalties for BSX’s use of its product.
Since hitting a high-water mark in 2005, Angiotech’s royalty revenues from paclitaxel-eluting coronary devices have plummeted in subsequent years.
Boston Scientific is still the worldwide leader in drug-eluting stents, but a steady increase in competition from other DES makers like Abbott Laboratories (NYSE:ABT), Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) subsidiary Cordis Corp. and Medtronic Inc. (NYSE:MDT) has cut into those sales significantly.
Angiotech also revealed in regulatory filings that it received relief from the Public Health Service of the U.S. on royalty payments it was to make to the National Institutes of Health in accordance with a 1997 licensing deal to acquire the rights to provide paclitaxel to Boston Scientific and Cook Medical Inc.
Angiotech was granted some $7.3 million in relief from the federal agency for accrued royalty payments and was able to shed the milestone payments from Taxus sales in exchange for a higher return on the company’s Cook contract.
ANPI stock was de-listed from the Toronto Stock Exchange March 3, after it failed to meet the market’s trading requirements.
