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Biotech / Medical : Staar Surgical STAA

STAA 25.87

-2.5%

Oct 31 9:30 AM EST

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To: AARON DIDICH who wrote (38)	7/21/1999 12:43:00 PM
From: Alan A. Hicks	Read Replies (2) of 50

The European approval of STAAR's collamer material in IOLs was a very important announcement. Marketing approval in the U.S. has been applied for with approval expected around the end of year. STAAR's collamer is the best material on the market. (It is the same material being used in the ICL). Collagen is a natural tissue that occurs throughout the body. Collamer is made up of a collagen/polymer material that is 30% water. Alcon has been marketing an acrylic material that they claim is better than silicon and has helped make them the market leader in IOL's with some 40% of the market. (STAAR currently has about 20% of the market.) Older IOL's are other made out of a hard plexiglass-like material (PMMA). IOLs were first invented after doctors found that when WW2 pilots got chards of plexiglass plane canopy in their eyes, the chards were complete inert in the eye and left them in the eye. An English doctor then decided to use the same material to develop the an IOL. In 1949 the first IOL was implanted in an eye. The operation was successful and millions of IOLs have been implanted in eyes since then. STAAR invented the foldable IOL out of a silicon material that could be injected into a very small incision. The founder of STAAR (who is no longer with the company) licensed the technology out to all of STAAR's competitors to raise money. Now with STAAR's Toric lens and collamer for IOLs STAAR will have the premium products on the market which they can charge more money for and gain market share back from competitors. Other companies in the IOL business have not been investing in the kind of R&D efforts of STAAR. In addition, the collamer will be manufactured in Switzerland where they have a tax holiday resulting in a lower tax rate allowing more to fall to the bottom. STAAR's recent trading acts like it is under continuing accumulation. STAAR's chart has been making a bullish pennant formation. A break above $17 should move the shares to its all time high around $19. A break above $19 would be a major break out. KERA recently sold at $29 or a $440 million market cap based on just their Intac rings. An equivalent market cap for STAAR with be $35 and that would be only for the ICL. And that would give investors in STAAR the wick and the IOL business thrown in for free. CEO John Wolf has long told investors in STAAR the shares should be worth $50 per share. With the Collamer, Toric, ICL, and glaucoma wick, Wolf has been working for the last five years the place the company in the position it is today. The payoff is at hand. $50 no longer seems farfetched.

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