ProShares UltraShort Leh... (AMEX:PST)
Historical Stock Chart
From May 2019 to May 2024
Expects Soon to Sell All Non-Core Assets to Focus
on Its Safety-Sponge Opportunity
Patient Safety Technologies, Inc. (AMEX:PST) announced today that
it will merge with and adopt the name of its wholly owned subsidiary,
SurgiCount Medical, Inc. Bill Adams, Chairman and CEO of the
subsidiary, will be named Chief Executive Officer of the parent
company and join the Board of Directors, succeeding Louis Glazer,
M.D., who will remain Chairman of the Company and a consultant during
the transition period. Additionally, Richard Bertran, President of the
subsidiary, has been named President of the parent company, succeeding
Lynne Silverstein, who will also remain a consultant to the Company
during the transition. These changes are expected to become effective
as soon as possible, as well as changing the trading symbol for
SurgiCount Medical's common stock on the American Stock Exchange.
Bill Adams, who joined SurgiCount as a strategic consultant in
February 2005, was named Chairman of the subsidiary in November 2005
and CEO in April 2006, previously was President of Health West
Marketing, a medical marketing firm he founded in 1981. Richard
Bertran, who was named President of the SurgiCount subsidiary in
January 2006, has more than fifteen years of experience in surgical
product and technology sales and marketing, most recently with Maxim
Medical, a leader in the creation and packaging of custom surgical
packs.
"In view of the exciting growth opportunity we see for SurgiCount
Medical, we believe that these actions are the best way to deliver
value for our investors. Bill Adams and Rick Bertran are achieving
dramatic progress at SurgiCount, and their promotions are
well-earned," Dr. Glazer said. "In March 2006 SurgiCount won FDA
510(k) clearance to market and sell its patented Safety-Sponge(TM)
System to reduce or eliminate sponge counting errors and improve
patient safety in the surgical environment, and we announced our first
national distribution agreement, with Professional Hospital Supply, in
April. Bill, Rick and their team are moving ahead aggressively to
establish the Safety-Sponge System as the standard of care in the
healthcare industry."
The Safety-Sponge System is an integrated turn-key program of
thermally affixed, data matrix tagged surgical sponges, line-of-sight
scanning technology, and documentation that offers surgeons and
hospitals a solution to gossypiboma -- the term for surgical sponges
accidentally left inside a human body after surgery. The Safety-Sponge
System is the first computer-assisted program for counting sponges
ever cleared by the FDA.
"Based on our estimates compiled from various medical and legal
sources, gossypiboma occurs in about 3,000 to 5,000 surgical
procedures each year in the United States alone, and results in
liability settlements and other costs in excess of $750 million
annually. Accordingly, the Safety-Sponge System represents an
outstanding long-term growth opportunity for SurgiCount," Bill Adams
said. "To maintain our focus on successfully executing our growth
strategy for this business, the Board has decided to liquidate or
spin-off over a period of time all of the Company's non-core assets.
We will publicly announce additional information concerning the sale
or spin-off of non-core assets as we develop the plan in detail."
About the Safety-Sponge(TM) System
SurgiCount Medical's Safety-Sponge System works much like a
grocery store check-out system. Every surgical sponge and towel is
pre-labeled by the manufacturer with an individual and unique bar
coded label, and a scanning counter is used to read and record the
labels. No change is required in a hospital's established counting
procedures: sponges are counted and recorded by the system at the
beginning of the procedure and again as they are removed from the
patient.
About SurgiCount Medical
SurgiCount Medical, Inc. is a developer and manufacturer of
patient safety products and services. For more information, please
contact the company directly at 951-587-6201, or by email at
info@surgicountmedical.com or visit www.surgicountmedical.com.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains certain forward-looking statements.
These forward-looking statements can generally be identified as such
because the context of the statement will include words such as plans,
expects, should, believes, anticipates or words of similar import.
Stockholders, potential investors and other readers are cautioned that
these forward-looking statements are predictions based only on current
information and expectations that are inherently subject to risks and
uncertainties that could cause future events or results to differ
materially from those set forth or implied by the forward-looking
statements. Certain of those risks and uncertainties are discussed in
our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our
annual report on Form 10-K and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. These
forward-looking statements are only made as of the date of this press
release and the Company does not undertake any obligation to publicly
update such forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent events or
circumstances.