SurModics Inc (SRDX)

[Democritus_of_Abdera]

ARVO Meeting – SRDX’s presence....

I just returned from the ARVO meeting. As mentioned earlier on this board and at SRDX’s April Conference Call, SRDX had booth an exhibitor booth and a set of five scientific posters at this meeting.

Like last year, I found the SRDX booth to be attractive and manned by knowledgeable, friendly personnel. It was largely passive in the sense that it was advertising SRDX’s services rather than products... not a major criticism since SRDX does not have many products for the retail user.

There was information on the RetinaJect device that SRDX sells. The RetinaJect is a specialized syringe that facilitates injection into the subretinal space (i.e. the space between the photoreceptors and the retinal pigment epithelium... the same space entered by the new blood vessels that generate wet age-related macular degeneration). I talked to a user who was extremely pleased with the RetinaJect, both its utility and price/benefit ratio.. there seemed to have been several interested potential customers.

There was no mention of the UltraWeb nanofiber inserts or SRDX’s ECM technology, a short-coming in my opinion. A major competitor in this area, Millipore, also failed to profile their coated plasticware. I asked the Millipore representative why not... he said that there was no room.... however, I saw lots of empty space at his booth.

The SRDX scientific posters were high quality. There was some interest by the passers-by, as much or more than those at the related Posurdex posters by Allergan and Retisert posters by Bausch & Lomb. The discussion of antibody eluting coatings was very early stage... just proof of concept that a slow release coating of an antibody is possible. Recognizing that SRDX is always very secretive, I failed to find any reason to believe that a commercial application of the antibody eluting technology is in the works.

I was pleased to note on a Poster concerning the I-vation TA that there were only modest rises in intra-ocular pressure observed... In my opinion it is the threat of uncontrollable rises in intra-ocular pressure that has limited the use of triamcinolone therapies in the past.