Milestone Scientific eyeing upswing in dental sales as world unlocks, while its epidural system gains traction

Revolutionizing injections for doctors and patients CompuFlo instruments provide feedback to distinguish tissue types for precise location guidance Establishing relationships with world-class global partners What Milestone Scientific does: Milestone Scientific Inc (NYSEAMERICAN: MLSS) is a medical device research and development group that designs and patents innovative injection technology. It specializes in dynamic pressure sensing, which allows medics to know what the pressure at the tip of needle is at any time. The company is advancing computer-controlled drug delivery systems that offer significant efficiency and patient comfort gains in the medical and dentistry fields. Its Wand product for dentistry, which is the group's biggest revenue earner, makes an injection at the dentist a lot more comfortable. The numbness is contained on a single tooth rather than a whole portion of the mouth. In the medical solutions space, the firm has its CompuFlo Epidural Instrument for epidural injections, which has a 99% success in locating the epidural space on the first attempt. Done manually, the procedure can be cumbersome and time-consuming. The company believes the epidural system will become the new standard of care. An addition to the system, for catheter patients, its CathCheck technology is also gaining traction.  Milestone has a Compuflo training product to help medical students master epidurals. Milestone's CompuFlo Intra-Articular Instrument has been proven successful in administering medicaments into the intra-articular space. The group is also looking at future products in the cosmetic surgery, ophthalmic and neurosurgical sectors. How is it doing: Unsurprisingly, the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic had a negative impact on revenue for Milestone's second quarter to end-June 2020 due to reduced hours and closures of dental offices throughout the US and beyond. Overall, revenue for the quarter stood at $167,000 compared to $2.2 million in the same period of 2019, with dental revenues decreasing by around $2.1 million. Milestone said it had used the period to "better educate dentists on how The Wand can help dentists rebuild their practice by providing a safer and more pleasant environment for patients and staff". On September 9, the firm revealed that the Wand dental business had begun to recover, as dentists begin to reopen. Wand sales are 'trending' in the right direction and the group expects revenue in the third quarter this year to be a minimum of four times' second-quarter 2020 results, said Arjan Haverhals, the newly appointed president of Milestone Scientific and the CEO of Wand Dental Inc. Milestone also told investors it was advancing its sales efforts around its CompuFlo Epidural System and CathCheck technology. Interim chief executive Leonard Osser noted that the company was making its CompuFlo instrument more readily available to hospitals by lending it in exchange for a commitment to purchase a minimum number of disposables. Osser said the response so far has been "encouraging", and Milestone was increasing new trials in major hospitals over coming weeks. "Our sales pipeline is more robust than ever, and we look forward to finalizing agreements with several premier hospitals in the near future," he added. Inflection points: Further improvements to Wand dental sales and business More traction for its epidural system and catheter technology End of coronavirus repercussions What the boss says: Speaking to Proactive in May this year, interim CEO Leonard Osser cited a recent study carried out at a major university in Texas - the first which had examined the economics of the firm's CathCheck system, and was based on a scenario of giving every patient who needed an epidural there the firm's disposable products. "That would mean in an organization such as the one that did the study, it would be a savings on the 12,000 patients giving birth of approximately US$6 million, which is very, very compelling to an institution and so that study was major for us." Contact the author at giles@proactiveinvestors.com