Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Biotech / Medical : VISX -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Vector1 who wrote (447)	3/24/1998 1:59:00 AM
From: jrgmd	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1754

VISX is beginning to get interesting again. The PPP revenues are growing, enhanced by VISX's decision to hold onto royalty revenues they collect on LASIK cases rather than pass them on to PPP and have them divided with Summit. Many users are participating in FDA-approved Investigational Device Exemption (IDE) clinical studies and VISX has just made it easier for these users by making the Custom Keycard available to them, which allows them to pursue their investigations and to broaden the capabilities of the laser (trans-epithelial ablation, multi-pass, multi-zone treatment, etc.) here in the US. In addition, VISX has announced its newest hardware upgrade, the Smooth Scan modification, which delivers seven smaller beams to the cornea and moves them in circular, overlapping fashion, with one beam in the center and six around the periphery, to eliminate the visible steps created with the broad laser beam. The new beams increase and decrease in diameter as they rotate to create the concavities required for myopia and myopic astigmatism, but there are no more "ridges" visible. A trial plastic cut by the smoothscan VISX laser upgrade is now smooth and optically much more pleasing. With the move to LASIK, it isn't certain whether the smoother beam is going to make any difference (the undersurface of the corneal flap in LASIK remains untreated and relatively rough-textured) but it might resurrect PRK as an alternative to LASIK if the optical surface is smoother and induces less scarring and haze. We shall see. LASIK is now being offered as an alternative to PRK, even by diehard PRK surgeons, whereas PRK is rarely offered except with faint praise by LASIK surgeons. In any event, VISX now has a "scanning laser" answer to Chiron, NIDEK, Lasersight, and Autonomous Technologies, which will be formally introduced at the ASCRS meeting in San Diego next month.