Ferrets Stock to Watch: SAFETY MEDICAL PRODUCTS LTD 09:21, Monday, January 22, 2007
Sydney - Monday - January 22: (RWE Aust Business News) ******************************************************
OVERVIEW ********
A small medical products maker called Safety Medical Products Ltd (ASX:SFP) has turned in a remarkable share price surge in the space of about two weeks. On January 10 the shares stood at 65c but by Friday they had finished the day 16c ahead at $1.39.
It looks as though traders didn't take in the full gist of what the company was saying on January 15 and only woke to the company's potential on Friday.
Tucked away near the end of the ASX statement was: "SMP fully expects the market introduction of all of the above-mentioned products will lead the company to be trading profitably by the end of this calendar year."
However, the company has set internal goals to achieve this position by the end of the 2007 financial year.
Managing director John Riemelmoser added "We look forward to this very exciting period for the company and the successful commencement of sales of the company's flagship safety syringe product in the very near future."
Earlier, the company explained what its newly introduced products were.
Branding, packaging and bar coding has now been completed for the company's surgical masks, automatic medical and stationery tape dispensers and the single-use disposable thermometers.
All three of these products will have both a retail and wholesale presence as well being available shortly for online purchases direct from the company through its soon to be completed new SAMP Web shop.
Safety Medical has begun its marketing initiatives, targeting buyers and purchasing officers responsible for medical wholesale and distribution markets as well as the health industry, pharmacy groups, supermarkets, medical centres, GP groups, first aid kit manufacturers and stationery suppliers in Australia and New Zealand.
The company has specifically focused on these safety products for their practicality, uniqueness and sale potential, with the aim of building strong consumer awareness, goodwill and demand for the SMP brand.
This will soon be further consolidated with the market release of its Securetouch retractable syringe.
The assembly equipment for the Securetouch retractable syringe is rapidly approaching completion.
It is expected that the first trial runs will commence later this month with ramping up to full capacity to occur from early February.
The minimum contract rate of 4,000 units per hour resulting in a minimum of 33 million units per year.
The command centre was installed on the equipment last week, allowing the company to monitor every syringe from initial componentry through the entire assembly process to completion of the finished product.
It will also strength test 100 per cent of the finished units before release as part of the company's strict quality assurance system.
This web-linked state-of-the-art equipment will also enable SMP to monitor production by any of these machines placed anywhere in the world from its base in Adelaide.
This allows the monitoring by the company of any future licensing, royalty or manufacturing arrangements as well as providing access to and an ability to solve production problems wherever they occur.
SHARE PRICE MOVEMENTS *********************
Shares of Safety Medical Products on Friday climbed another 16c to $1.39. Rolling high for the year is $1.48, struck last week, and low 11c. The company has 28.4 shares on issue with a market cap of $39.6 million.
Safety Medical is currently engaged in the development of a unique range of safe retractable syringes and medical products.
The safety syringe system is designed as a single-use syringe which retracts within its own sleeve cartridge after use.
Dosage delivery remains extremely accurate and the company's quality control technologies comply with the standards set in the general health market for such products.
On April 28, 2005, the company entered into a strategic alliance agreement with US medical products distributor Exelint International Co for the manufacture and production of the Securetouch safety syringe in Korea.
It also provided for the exclusive sale and distribution of the product in the United States, Japan, Germany and the United Kingdom.
Safety Medical's cutting-edge syringe technology can be used in all conventional needle manufacturing segments, both conventional medical hypodermic syringes and for repeat-user markets.
The Securetouch safety syringe was designed with diabetic users, in particular, taken into consideration, thus resulting in the integration of a unique magnification feature that increases the size of the numbers on the syringe by more than 25 per cent.
BACKGROUND **********
Safety Medical Products listed on the Australian Stock Exchange on November 28, 2005.
Mr Riemelmoser originally conceived the idea and specifications for the syringe back in 2000.
With a background in sales and distribution of consumer products, he was able to facilitate the prototype tooling and funding of the development of the syringe through to recent commercialisation.
The company said Mr Riemelmoser has been vitally concerned with all stages of development of the syringe, as well as facilitating and overseeing all necessary prototype changes to ensure a readily acceptable and marketable product for the world markets.
As such, he has both the skills, experience and ambitions to lead the company as a supplier of safety medical products worldwide, the company's website reveals.
The technology and intellectual property embodied within the Securetouch safety syringe was devised and re-engineered over the past four years, with several prototype changes and made specifically at the direction of Exelint to address the requirements of these large overseas markets.
Patents are pending in 126 countries, and the range is to be marketed under the Securetouch brand, with production targets and sales commitments of 50 million units per year to be achieved by April 2008 and agreed minimum increases thereafter of 10 per cent per annum.
The syringes comprise a unique range of single-use safety and retractable syringes with genuine single-use action.
The syringe enables extreme accuracy of dosage delivery and in the action of administering the dose the syringe is drawn into and secured within a unique polypropylene sleeve after use.
With proven technology developed in Australia, the Securetouch will be positioned to address the very serious global problem of needle-stick injuries, especially with diabetics and repeat users, at very low unit cost.
The company is also looking to produce its Meditag temperature control product for sales into the Australian and worldwide medical and health industries.
It holds the worldwide rights to the technology for the temperature-control of Meditag, a product that monitors the storage and handling of temperature-sensitive products.
The Meditag can be applied to a large number and variety of products and quality assurance requirements within the medical, health, pharmaceutical, veterinary and cosmetics sectors, such as pharmaceuticals and medicines, vaccines, blood supplies, supplements, skin creams and beauty products, natural and alternative products where temperature control is necessary.
The Meditag is expected to be manufactured in Australia at very low and economic cost.
The company considers the scope of the application for Meditag to be of enormous potential and the market to be growing, given the stricter product standard and quality assurance controls now operating in Australia and around the world, and provides leading-edge quality control monitoring and cost benefits to its end-users.
It is seeking to raise a minimum $4 million in equity to fund commercialisation, production and marketing of the Securetouch safety syringe in the USA, UK, German and Japanese markets through Exelint, and Australian and Asia-Pacific markets through its head office in Australia.
The raising will also allow monies to be utilised to support and promote the development and production of other medical products within the group, such as Meditag, and further product development as appropriate.