International Isotopes in April secured a $495,500 bank loan via federal COVID-19 relief legislation to help pay its employees, according to a quarterly filing Wednesday with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) in the CARES Act, signed into law in March, is intended to assist small businesses in meeting payroll, and to bring back employees who have been laid off, amid the global economic disruption caused by the pandemic.
The Idaho Falls, Idaho, nuclear medicine company said it has not laid off or furloughed any personnel due to the public health emergency. Only its nuclear medicine calibration standards business took a small sales hit resulting from COVID-19, management said in its 10-Q filing with the SEC.
Still, a wholly owned subsidiary on April 23 received the PPP loan from the KeyBank National Association. The loan has a 1% interest rate and matures on April 22, 2022.
“In accordance with the requirements of the CARES Act and the PPP, the Company intends to use the proceeds from the SBA Loan primarily for payroll costs,” International Isotopes said. “No assurance can be given that the Company will be granted forgiveness of the SBA Loan in whole or in part.”
For the quarter ended March 31, sales dropped from just over $2.5 million in 2019 to slightly above $2.3 million. The income figures were more stark: International Isotopes’ quarterly net loss, net of noncontrolling interest, grew from $51,958 in 2019 to $422,494 this year.. The company attributed the drop to lower revenue for radiological services, higher operating expenses connected to contract manufacturing salaries, and rising interest expenses.
Radiological services revenue plunged 88% year over year, from $587,609 in the first quarter of 2019 to $73,321 in 2020. International Isotopes has stopped providing radiological source recovery for the Department of Energy and United Nations nuclear agency. That came after DOE suspended or canceled all of its contracts for this work with International Isotopes, following the spill of cesium-137 last May during the company’s removal of a blood irradiator from a hospital research facility in Seattle under contract to DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA).
