Medical isotopes producer and radiological services specialist International Isotopes on Friday reported a $1.88 million net loss for 2016, up 3 percent from the $1.82 million loss it logged the year before. That slight uptick resulted largely from a roughly 7 percent year-over-year revenue drop, to $6.55 million, along with higher operating expenses, the company said in its latest earnings report.
Revenue from sales of radiochemical products, which produced about a quarter of the company’s sales for the year, sneaked higher by 1 percent largely thanks to an 18 percent spike in the fourth quarter. But revenue in International Isotopes’ other business segments sank: cobalt sales, 13 percent of full-year revenue, were down by 8 percent from 2015; sales of nuclear medicine standards, 47 percent of total revenue, dropped by 1 percent; and radiological services revenue, 12 percent of the total, plummeted by 35 percent.
Still, CEO Steve Laflin said there is cause for optimism across the company’s business branches, starting with submission of an abbreviated new drug application to the Food and Drug Administration for International Isotopes’ new sodium iodide radiopharmaceutical product.
“This is the first generic application in the U.S. for this product which is in strong demand for the treatment and diagnosis of various diseases of the thyroid gland such as Graves’ disease, thyroid cancer and hyperthyroidism,” according to Laflin. “The time frame for FDA approval is uncertain. However, once approved, we are prepared to quickly launch full-scale commercial sales of the drug product and expect to see a positive impact to our total company revenue from the sales of this single product alone.”
In other developments, management expects more contract opportunities from the Department of Energy’s Off Site Source Recovery Program this year, and has already secured three contracts to date in 2017; and the company has made progress in addressing the cobalt shortage that hurts its cobalt sales in 2016.
