Uroplasty Inc. (NSDQ:UPI) is hoping to corner a big piece of the $20 million market for bulking agents used to treat stress unrinary incontinence now that C.R. Bard (NYSE:BCR) is no longer a player in the space.
"It’s not a particularly big market, but the main market share leader, C.R. Bard, has exited that business because the company they were buying the raw material from stopped making it," president and CEO David Kaysen told MassDevice. "That Bard business is now up for grabs and Macroplastique has the best and longest-term clinical data behind it. We certainly think we’ve got an opportunity in the short term to pick up a chunk of that Bard business."
The move puts the Minnetonka, Minn.-based incontinence treatment maker in direct competition with a pair of industry giants, Boston Scientific (NYSE:BSX) and Denmark’s Coloplast (CPH:COLOB). We asked Kaysen if Uroplasty, a relative David compared with that pair of Goliaths, was worried about going up against them head-to-head.
"We like the analogy," he told us. "The short answer is no."
"For us, it really all boils down to efficacy of the product and the clinical data that’s out there," Kaysen said. "We are developing an incredibly strong asset in our sales organization, that knows how to talk to these doctors, knows how to get in front of them, has established relationships or can build on them with new doctors. We’re not worried about it. We look forward to it."
BSX and Coloplast aren’t the only large bodies Uroplasty bangs up against in the paint, he added, citing Pfizer (NYSE:PFE), Stellar Pharmaceuticals (PINK:SLXCF) and Medtronic (NYSE:MDT).
"If I look at our product line, not just the Macroplastique but also UrgentPC, everybody we go up against is a Goliath," Kaysen said.
UrgentPC is Uroplasty’s entry into the neurostimulation market — a posterior tibial nerve stimulation device that, unlike competing devices from Medtronic and others, is minimally invasive.
Back in January, Bard chairman and CEO Timothy Ring told analysts on a conference call discussing its fourth-quarter results that Allergan (NYSE:AGN), which makes Bard’s Contigen SUI bulking agent, "will no longer be supplying that after about mid-this year."
"Contigen … is a product that we’ve had in the pipeline now for about 20 years, 16 years, I think to be exact," Ring said. "We’ve notified customers of all that and that is ramping down pretty substantially already."
Boston Scientific’s entry into the SUI bulking agent arena, Coaptite, is made by BioForm Medical. Coloplast’s offering, Durasphere, is made by Carbon Medical Technologies.
Yesterday Uroplasty beat Wall Street and closed near its all-time high after reporting strong top-line growth for the fourth quarter and full year.
The company posted net losses of $4.6 million, or 25 cents per share, on sales of $13.8 million for fiscal 2011. That’s a sales increase of 16.2 percent, although net losses also grew by 45.1 percent. Fourth-quarter results were even more dramatic — net losses of $1.3 million, or 6 cents per share, on sales of $4.0 million for the three months ended March 31 added 34.6 percent to the top line, but net losses soared 130.4 percent.