Bruce,
Tough to answer just how well all this will work out, but ATIS looks to be able to survive financially, as long as products ultimately make it out. They likely would need to access the 50 million equity line and the 7 million available to borrow from S&N after getting the 15 million in january they receive as a payment from S&N. I think they have somewhere in the neighborhood of 26 million in their own investments/cash, although there is a similar amount already out there in debt.
According to the IR people at ATIS, and who believes what obviously is up to each individual, S&N people have been around a lot lately, and have been very supportive. The apparent attitude is the partnership is there and will remain there. This isn't hard to believe, as S&N doesn't have much to give the potential future for them that ATIS can potentially offer, even if they have to wait a longer while than anticipated to do so. Also, they would see how efficacious the dermagraft product is in England theoretically.
As to why S&N would put out a specific press release, I am unsure. S&N is mentioned in many of the articles, given their partnership, but is not directly involved with the problem...this is directly ATIS's problem. You never know exactly how or when to expect releases. Nevertheless, this whole turn of events has been rather strange and I'm not sure I'd want to do much guessing here.
Good luck,
Marshall |
