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Biotech / Medical : Summit Technology (BEAM) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: majormember who wrote (1237)	5/24/1999 5:02:00 PM
From: Joe	Respond to of 1386

Skane, BEAM obtained a product called LADARVision when they acquired ATCI. This is the future of excimer LVC, IMO. The difference between this and the rest is that it uses a small diameter beam and scans it over the eyes surface by an exceptional good eyetracker. With this product, software modifications will be possible to allow for what they call CustomCornea. This means that they will be able to achieive multi-focal corneas, bifocal corneas, and correct abnormally shaped corneas. While my guess is that VISX is working on a similar system, they are probably several years away, just a guess. BEAM has it now. They just need to do the clinicals. The targets on both BEAM, VISX, and SNRS will be determined by procedure numbers. It will be difficult for BEAM to catch up with VISX by virtue of the head start and number of machines in place and what markets they are dominate in. It is possible that some VISX machines will be replaced with BEAM machines in time but this will not matter much till we reach saturation. In time both will have comparable evaluations. With SNRS it is another matter altogether. I think that LTK will become the standard of care for low to moderate hyperopia. This means that most of the patients will be treated in this manner. I base this on the safety profile and the fact that it is non-invasive and will be sought out and preferred by patients. Some say that the owners of excimer lasers will not spend the money since they can treat with what they already have. The way SNRS intends to offer the product, there will be a big financial incentive to treat with LTK over the excimer beyond patient demand. Since the hyperopic market is bigger than the myopic market, what does that mean in terms of market caps??? JMHO, Joe