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| Spectranetics CEO Scott Drake |
Shares of Spectranetics ($SPNC), the maker of medical lasers, hit a 6-month low in heavy trading after it reported lower quarterly earnings and trimmed its forecast for the year because of increased competition from other drug-coated balloon products and its own R&D spending.
The Colorado-based company made the amended forecast in its first-quarter earnings release issued Thursday evening after markets had closed. By the end of trading Friday, shares dropped 23.6%, or $8.18, closing at $26.52 in volume of 6.6 million shares. The decline came just over a month after reaching an all-time high of $36.44 on March 18.
Shares in early trading today were up 5.1% at $27.87 per share.
Spectranetics, with a market capitalization of $1.1 billion, said during an earnings call that the introduction by competitors of new drug-coated balloon products used in cardiovascular procedures are vying against its own AngioSculpt device. On top of that, the company said it expects it will pump more money into its pipeline, though company leadership remained upbeat about how the market will shake out in the future.
"We've got two sets of products launching," Scott Drake, president and CEO, said in the earnings call. "One is a new platform and the other one is simply an improvement on the current technology that we have out in the field that could be a mitigator to that flatness that we're seeing in the U.S. (market)."
The company reported a first-quarter net loss of $27.3 million, or $0.65 per share, versus $5.7 million, or $0.14 per share, for the same period last year.
For its guidance in 2015, Spectranetics projected revenue on the low end of a range of $258 million to $265 million. Its AngioSculpt revenue is expected to come in on the lower end of $59 million to $66 million, compared with previous outlook of $62 million to $66 million.
Spectranetics bought cardiovascular balloon maker AngioScore last year from Covidien for $230 million in a transaction designed to boost Spectranetics' offering of products, which includes coronary intervention devices like laser catheters and laser support catheters.
- see the release
- read the earnings transcript