Time to start a thread. Feel free to post or park. They're a pretty odd beast, but it's now clear that the company's future growth will be biotech related -
From last 10-Q
"...We will use cash generated by our existing venture capital investments to support more aggressive spending in our Therics subsidiary. As part of the plan, we will reduce future investments in our venture portfolio, which is expected to yield significant positive cash flows over the next few years. This cash is expected to be more than adequate to fund the increased spending at Therics. Excess cash may be used for stock repurchases, debt reduction and acquisitions. We are currently authorized by our board of directors to repurchase up to four million shares of our common stock in the open market or in privately negotiated transactions.
We plan to invest approximately $60 million ($40 million net of expected tax benefits) in Therics over the next three years, with the goal of achieving substantial revenue and profit growth by 2004. We believe Therics is making encouraging progress in its development of bone replacement and reconstructive products as well as implantable and oral drugs. Therics' operating losses could reach $25 million per year in 2001 and 2002. Our goal is for Therics to begin generating revenue and reducing losses in 2003, with rapid growth in sales and profits thereafter.
Therics' technology can take very sensitive, biologically compatible materials and fabricate them into anatomically accurate bone replacement products with precise internal micro-architectures. We plan to use this unique capability to gain access to a potential multi-billion dollar market for more sophisticated tissue-engineered products. Our initial efforts are aimed at surgical procedures that require relatively simple combinations of materials and strength. Subsequent products will be designed to facilitate full incorporation into a patient's body tissue.
Our plan is to pursue the quickest route to profitability by focusing on commercializing our bone replacement products while continuing to develop our drug delivery and tissue engineering technologies. We expect the first of our bone replacement products to clear FDA regulatory hurdles by the end of 2001. Full-scale marketing efforts are planned to begin in 2002.
We also announced the exploration of external financing and other strategic alternatives for Molecumetics. Molecumetics uses proprietary chemistry and an integrated set of drug discovery capabilities to accelerate the
identification of novel drug candidates. External financing would
fund higher spending levels and reduce new cash outlays from Tredegar. However, due to accounting rules, our earnings may reflect up to $10 million per year in operating losses from Molecumetics in 2001 and 2002.
In order to accelerate efforts to build our technology operations, we have decided to harvest our existing venture portfolio. We intend to fund existing commitments and support existing portfolio companies, but will not make any new direct investments in 2001..." |
