EATONTOWN, N.J., Nov. 5 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Osteotech, Inc. (Nasdaq: OSTE), a leader in the emerging field of biologic products for regenerative healing, today reported financial results for the third quarter ended September 30, 2009.
“During the third quarter of 2009, our focus was on the release of our three new biologic products MagniFuse(TM) Bone Graft, FacetLinx(TM) Fusion Technology and Plexur M® Innovative Grafting,” said Sam Owusu-Akyaw, President and Chief Executive Officer of Osteotech. “All of these products have generated excitement among surgeons and our sales agencies. We have received very positive feedback from our surgeon customers and believe these products are well-positioned to become market leaders. Based upon the dynamic feedback we’ve received to date, we made additional and necessary enhancements to these product lines during the third quarter of 2009
incurring incremental costs and expenses of approximately $.4 million. We are focused on learning from the challenges associated with our previous product launches and working to ensure we can be responsive to the market’s needs and flexible as new opportunities arise. We plan to continue to invest in these new products during the balance of 2009 because our future growth and profitability will be driven by our ability to be successful with the releases of these new and differentiated biologics. We feel confident we are taking the steps necessary to successfully position our new biologics in the procedure-specific markets they are designed to serve, although the required investments will impact our 2009 revenue and bottom line expectations.”
“We have made notable progress in executing our product development and launch strategies throughout 2009, but we have also faced considerable challenges”, continued Mr. Owusu-Akyaw. “Our domestic base business grew sequentially compared with the second quarter and year-over-year, which we believe provides tangible evidence that our growth strategy is gaining traction and that we are successfully executing. While we were able to achieve domestic sales growth, we have seen a slowdown in international sales, primarily due to our self-imposed temporary suspension of Bulgarian tissue in a key Asian market and the general economic and reimbursement conditions in Greece. Initially, we anticipated recovering some of the lost market share in the second half of 2009, but we now believe we have lost traction in these markets. For the three and nine months ended September 30, 2009, these markets generated revenue of $.3 million and $2.0 million, respectively, compared with $1.6 million and $5.4 million in the comparable periods of 2008.”
