KERA 1st Quarter Conference Call 4/17/00

Tom Loarie (TL)
John Galantic (JG)
Mark Fisher-Colbrie (MFC)

TL: Executing on transition plan from a training company (revenues from kit sales) to 
company growing revenues through sales of Intacs to treat vision problems.  Seeing success 
in procedure growth.  Past quarter focused on developing fast-track centers; presently 
working with about 40, expanding this group in the second quarter.  Fast-track centers 
will be the focal point of consumer marketing initiatives which have been in development.
Waited to implement these initiatives till we had a group of practices that were trained
and prepared to receive consumers and to meet consumer expectations.  This initial core 
of fast-track practices is in various stages of development, but far enough along to 
proceed to phase two of the fast track program, which is implementing the consumer 
programs which are designed to:

1) Create awareness and demand among discontented contact lens and eyeglass wearers wary 
of laser surgery.

2) Match these consumers with one of the local fast-track practices.

With these fast-track distribution points now in place in key markets, we are now ready to
move into the consumer phase, which we will begin implementing in May with the new 
consumer programs.


MFC: Revenues of $1.0 million for the first quarter, net loss of $9.8 million (EPS -0.54).
Up slightly from a net loss of $9.5 million in the previous quarter (EPS -0.52).  
Decrease in revenue from Q4 to Q1, related to the continued transition from sales of 

start-up kits to sales of Intacs.  Two key points:
1) Sales of instruments produced one-time revenue

2) Procedure revenue is growing, and set a new record for the 1st quarter, it is not to 
the point of offsetting the revenue from the starter-kit sales.

Other elements:  R&D expense up slightly due to continued work on the Phase III clinical 
trials for Intacs addressing a wider range of myopia. Cost of sales down slightly, 
primarily as a function of fewer kit sales.  SG&A expenses of $6.7 million were 
significant but down slightly, although we do expect SG&A to grow significantly over the 
year as we continue to launch the programs which John Galantic will discuss.  Cash and 
equivalents were nearly $40 million.



JG: Our focus is to increase procedure volume.  Our basic strategy is straightforward: 
first get fast-track practices trained and operating with Intacs as their procedure of 
choice for mild myopes. Second, add direct-to-consumer marketing programs which drive 
qualified consumers to these fast-track practices.


A fast-track practice is one which demonstrates a commitment to make Intacs the procedure 
of choice for mildly nearsighted patients.  In exchange for this commitment, we provide 
them with special clinical and commercial training which helps them generate patient 
interest and convert this patient interest into procedures.  We developed several programs
to do this, including patient seminars, cooperative advertising, special promotions, and 
expansion of their optometrist referral channel.  We continue to test and refine some of 
these programs as we move ahead, and we will add more fast-track practices in Q2 and Q3.



To best execute this strategy at the practice level, we've taken steps to revamp the sales 
force.  This organizational change reflects the shifting focus from a training and 
proctoring organization to one focused on developing the fast-track practices and 
generating procedure volume.  We anticipated these changes last fall, and we've been 
moving towards them since then.  Where personell changes were required, we've been able in
many cases to promote from within the company.  The transition should be complete by the 
end of April.  Already we have a team that is very tightly focused on the steps needed to 
insure that the fast-track practices are effectively marketing Intacs.


New appointment: David Applegate, VP Medical Marketing and New Business Development.  
David was Director of New Product Marketting at the JNJ Vistikon division, where he 
launched One-Day Acuvue in 1995, the world's first daily disposable contact lens, with 
current estimated world-wide sales of $200 million.  Later, as VP of Marketing at Summit 
Technology, he directed the consumer launch for the first FDA-approved excimer laser.  
Among the assets David brings to KERA is the know-how to build physician referral 
channels, and, in the case of Acuvue and now Intacs, the strength and the role that 
optometrists can play in generating consumer referrals to the fast-track.


To fully understand the second component of our strategy,  driving consumers to the fast-
track practices, let me start with our consumer research findings, which are the 
foundation for all of our direct-to-consumer communications.  Last year we engaged Rosetta
Marketing Strategies to learn more about our consumer, and specifically, how refractive 
consumers make brand decisions.  We gained a number of very valuable insights; for 
instance, we found that approximately 50% of mild myopes are dissatisfied with their 
eyeglasses and contacts.  Of these, about 80% are apprehensive about the refractive 
surgery options.  However, when presented with the Intacs concept, the number of mild 
myopes who say they are considering refractive surgery shoots up 38%.  We also learned 
that Intacs have stronger appeal than LASIK to this large group of apprehensive consumers.
This suggests that as we educate the consumer,  KERA's total available market grows 
markedly.


We also developed a clearer profile of the person most drawn to the Intacs concept.  We've
used our learning from the Rosetta research to design a new web site, as well as the 
other consumer programs that have been under development since late last year.  Our 
consumer marketing programs will consist of print and radio advertising, as well as direct
mail pieces to targeted consumers in zip codes around our fast-track practices.  By the 
end of May, we'll be launching a new interactive website to educate and pre-sell 
consumers, who will then be directed to a fast-track surgeon in their area.  


When we consider everything we've learned from our research about the Intacs consumer - 
that he or she is highly educated, high-income, a high internet user - we believe that 
this direct-to-consumer internet strategy will be highly efficient in allowing us to reach
our consumer in an economical way.


So how are those strategies working so far?  Total procedures for the quarter were at a 
record - over 1,100.  About 90% of these procedures were performed by surgeons who had 
already completed Intacs training and proctoring, and were performing Intacs on an ongoing
basis.  So the number of these "post-training" Intacs procedures for the first quarter 
was approximately 1000, which is twice the average quarterly rate of 1999.  This increase 
was led by the fast-track group, whose post-training procedures were up 47% over the 
fourth quarter.  We intend to continue sharing this kind of data on a quarterly basis.


Also enouraging is the growth of our non-fast-track practices, up 23% vs. Q4.


We believe this data is particularly encouraging when considering the fact that they were 
achieved without the help of the major consumer programs scheduled for launch next month. 
As cooperative advertising, direct mail activity, web site, and other initiatives are 
implemented, we believe demand will grow, and so will procedure volume.  And as fast-track
practices create enough Intacs wearers to make up a strong patient referral network,  
they eventually will become self-sustaining distribution points.


Exciting new vision-care applications for Intacs:  In addition to the large mild-myopia 
market,  Intacs are also being developed for a variety of new applications, and we've made
significant strides in these areas in the first quarter.  These include the treatment of 
keratoconus, hyperopia, and post-LASIK ectasia.  We also saw a number of surgeons in the 
US and internationally conducting independent efforts to expand Intacs applications.  Some
of the most interesting work involves using Intacs as a complement to LASIK, such as 
repairing LASIK-induced corneal thinning, using Intacs in combination with LASIK to treat 
pre-presbyopes before they need reading glasses, and using LASIK followed by Intacs to 
treat high myopes, so that they have an extra zone of protection from corneal thinning.

The Intacs technology is a potent one, and it may be that we've barely touched the 
possibilities for manipulating corneal curvature in order to treat refractive error 
injuries and diseases of the eye.


TL:  This is a very exciting time for both the company and those of us who have been 
working to begin Intacs to commercial success for many, many years.  The new applications 
are very exciting,  John and his team are executing on the market development plan.  We 
are now seeing Intacs procedures growing due to a well-executed plan, our fast-track 
model.  I think most importantly for me and others who've been around a long time is that 
we are gaining our market confidence based on these results.  We now are learning how to 
grow our business with refractive surgeons in a predictable way.  I am eagerly looking 
forward to the next phase which is about to be implemented that will link, or match, the 
discontented contact lens and eyeglass wearers who are seeking alternatives, but who have 
been and are now apprehensive about RK and laser-based procedures.  Execution of this next 
phase will add the "consumer pull" element which I have from the beginning believed is 
critical to penetrating the market and growing and ultimately maintaining a significant 
market share.  KERA has an extremely unique opportunity with its branded approach to 
treating common vision problems, and I am very confident that we are now well on our way.


__________________________________________________________________________________

Q & A:


Lawrence Keusch (GS):  Share a little more on how much of the 1,100 procedures did the 
fast-track procedures account for?  In other words, of the ones that were trained and 
going, how much did they account for?


A: About one-half, Larry.


LK: Ok, so if I just do the math quickly, and there's about 550 procedures and there are 
38 fast-tracks, that means they were each doing 14, so about 5 per month.  I guess... and 
I don't quite understand if these guys have been going for a while now - 5 a month sounds 
awfully small to me given the relative volume of procedures that are done out there.  I'm 
just trying to gain some sense of what that means.


A: Larry, what you've got to keep in mind is that the fast-track is being added to in 
continual increments, and we've got a core group we started with of 15 doing a much higher
average.  We had another group of 15 come on-line in the first quarter, and they're doing
slightly lower, and then we had another group of 7 which just started and is just barely 
off the ground.


TL:  Also, Larry, we've talked about this a lot, this is establishing our clinical 
platform, our distribution points, and because of the momentum we've seen over the last 
few years with LASIK, and even without that, we've always believed that ours is a branded 
product, and what we're seeing now is the growth of the procedures in a very competitive 
market without reaching the consumer.  And one of the big, big things as you walk around 
this country and talk to people about Intacs is that we have a very low level of awareness
with the consumer.  That part will start to be implemented as we go forward here in the 
next 90 days.


JG: What I'd add to that is that the procedure growth that we're getting in the fast-track
and overall is driven completely by, I'll call it sweat and elbow grease on the sales 
side, working with the practice, and very very little by direct-to-consumer, and that's 
the part we're about to put in next month, which will have a significant effect on 
procedure growth.


LK: You mentioned before that these [fast-track] centers were committed to making this the
procedure of choice.  Does that mean that they are not doing LASIK or some other sort of 
procedure?

JG: No, not at all, in fact I would say that just about all of our customers are doing 
both LASIK and Intacs, and a few are doing some other of the smaller procedures. But they 
are making a commitment to make Intacs the procedure of choice within our range, which 
you'll recall is maybe 15% of the existing market but over 50% of the myopes.


LK: I guess what I'm getting at is that, if these are established practices... I don't 
know exactly how the advertising works with the laser guys out there, but a lot of the 
practices were out there doing their own and competing with other practices, so am I to 
assume that these guys are not advertising for Intacs?


JG: Most of them have started some sort of advertising for Intacs, albeit on a small 
scale.  I'd say just about all.



TL:  I'd add, Larry, that we're dealing with a marketplace today where LASIK is really on 
the airwaves and well-known, and it's not differentiated.  The doctor is not adding any 
value in the mind of the consumer to the LASIK procedure, which is leading to the downward
pressure on pricing in the LASIK arena.  We're not going into a market and having 
everybody in town doing Intacs.  We have an opportunity now to co-brand with these 
doctors.  And everybody now, because there's so much pressure on LASIK pricing, everyone 
has discovered this new market called "the mild myope," from -1 to -3 diopters.  And 
that's where the game's going to be played, and that's where we think we have significant 
attributes giving us a strong position going forward, but up until now this part of the 
market has been very under-developed.



LK:  Given the pace at which the market on the laser side is transitioning to $2000 or 
less bilateral, what position does that put you guys in relative to your pricing.  Because
it seems to me they're going to create a market out there that's very affordable to many 
interested parties.

TL: Remember what I think John said in his remarks that the number one reason for not 
having laser surgery or RK has nothing to do with price - it's fear.  And there was a 
study that came out last year - it wasn't our study - that if you offered LASIK for free, 
only 50% of the eligible people would take that opportunity.  Fear is the number one 
driver, and that's why we did the segmentation study, so that we could identify, quantify,
and understand the attitudes associated with that fear, and position our product 
appropriately.  We have a significant advantage over every product that has ever come into
the market, and that is the fact that this can be exchanged, it can be removed, and I can
assure you that in the data that is a big advantage.  It has been in every market study 
we've done, and now we're in a position to show it because we're going to be able to go to
the consumer in the next couple of months.  And as you know, we were unable to do that in
the European market.

LK: Ok, so I guess what I'm hearing is that you're not planning on dropping your price...


TL: Our prices right now are holding pretty good.


LK: Lastly, where do you think your procedure volume can go for the year, based on this 
1,100 in the first quarter; and you said you had $40 million in cash, where does that put 
you in terms of needing to raise additional financing.


JG: In terms of procedure volume, Larry, what we're doing is creating the business model, 
and we'll be updating people quarter by quarter as we make that volume grow.  Obviously we
believe we've got the recipe for doing that and when we kick in the consumer parts of it 
we expect to see some nice growth going into Q2.  On the cash side, the issue there is 
really what is the revenue ramp and how much money will we be spending on the sales and
marketing on the consumer side.  What we are doing is very much testing the methodology 
whereby we will see what is the most efficient means of communication.  We believe that
with our targeted direct-to-consumer communications it will be done cheaply and 
effectively, not done on a broad-based scale like a shotgun but more like a rifle-shot 
approach.  What that means in total is that as we look at what programs are effective we 
will continue to build on them, and therefore it's a little bit indeterminate to be saying
how much our sales and marketing will be growing over the course of the year.  Of course 
those are the two drivers for the break-even analysis, the revenue ramp and the sales and 
marketing expenditures.

TL: Let me just add on the sales and marketing expense side that we've spent a fair amount
so far on our web site.  We're using a major web site developer, which we will announce 
shortly, but it's very well-known in the world of internet.  This web site, the reason we 
went this way, is that we know last year that when we had all promotion, or PR around our 
approval by the FDA, quite a few people went in and saw doctors, and the doctors tried to 
convert them to LASIK or successfully did convert them to LASIK because they weren't 
educated.  We know that educating our patient through print, radio, and TV ads is pretty 
darn expensive.  This website will be a portal that we can direct people to through 
advertising, and the doctors can as well, and become an educational, interactive site, and
this site will have it's own eye exam, there will be financing available, so when the 
patient comes out, they're essentially going to be handed to the doctor, and a doctor that
is doing procedures and providing good outcome.  As we get beyond the initial expense of 
putting this in place, this will allow us to be more cost-effective in our over-all 
advertising program.

LK: Do you think procedures can double or triple in the next quarter?  What's you 
visibility in the second quarter.

TL: I think as we drop in our consumer stuff we'll be able to tell you how that's going to
impact.

LK: So you can't tell us right now?

TL: No.



Michael Murphy (Murphy Mutual Funds):  I've actually been hearing radio ads for Intacs 
here in California, which I assume have all been paid for by the doctors?


A: In the fast-track there's a sharing of costs between KERA and the practice, but there 
are also quite a few accounts which have started advertising on their own, without the 
financial support of KERA.

MM: I'd like to pursue this rifle-shot thing, because that to me means not spending a lot 
of money on radio and TV, as opposed to what? You get lists of contact lens wearers and go
after them, that kind of thing?

JG: Well that is a big piece of our marketing mix, which is a direct mailing to consumers 
who are contact lens users, and some of those mailings actually allow us to target within 
our range.

MM: Sounds good, thanks.



Dave Dirkelson (?) (Dain Rauscher Wessels):  What is the rate of adding new fast-track 
practices for the balance of the year?

JG: It's going to be somewhat a factor of just how effective we are in our direct-to-
consumer marketing which comes into play in May or June.  We're going to decide whether 
it's better to have more patients and have a higher procedure per practice rate or whether
it's better to continue to ramp up as we've been doing and add fast-track practices.


DD: It seems to me that another part of the equation is just the overall simplicity of the
procedure itself; are there things that you're doing on that front that might make this 
more attractive to a broader group of physicians?  You've talked about this in the past - 
can you give us an update?

TL: We have a procedure task team that's working with a number of doctors that is focused 
on about six separate elements where we believe we can not only improve the procedure 
reducing the skill but also improve the throughput time for the doctor, and that's a major
program within the company.

JG: One of the advantages of our fast-track strategy is that we have a very focused 
approach working clinically with these practices to perfect their technique, take them
down the learning curve.  We then take those learnings, codify them, and expand them to
new customers.

TL: One thing I want to point out is on that percentage increase within the fast-track 
practices, I want to emphasize the sweat, blood and tears that goes into that.  This is 
not a group of new patients that are coming in that have heard about Intacs, this is the 
doctors actually switching the patients that are coming in the door to Intacs, which 
requires this whole practice-integration effort, and as we stated before, we believe the 
consumer part will now bring in that new patient population that everyone's seeking.





Joseph Milsap (Huntley Securities):  Can you describe what the cost to bring a new fast-
track clinic on would be, and how many physicians in the fast-track programs - what kind 
of numbers are we talking about relative to the numbers which have already gone through 
the training?

TL: I believe we have 38 fast-track doctors right now, and we will continue to expand that
group through the year.  As we drop in our consumer marketing, we'll make a decision if 
we want to stay with a narrowly-focused program or move to a more broadly-focused program;
so the speed that we adopt will have a lot to do with our consumer marketing.  Initially 
there is an expense because we have our people in their practices a day a week, working 
with their practices,  that's both on the clinical side and on the business management 
side.  So there's a declining involvement by our people on a full-time basis as time goes 
on, and then we move into some of the co-op programs that we have for the doctors.


JG: The other expense, of course, is some of the marketing program, in the co-op 
advertising, and what we see is that some of our larger customers who have been doing a 
significant number of procedures for several months now are starting to build up a patient
referral network in their community, and what we're going to discover over the next few 
months is where is that point of critical mass at which the practice becomes a sustaining 
distribuition point on its own through a number of patients in the area.

JM: Are there any markets that you can point us to that we should be doing some of our own
work on to better understand the consumer and physician activity relative to the level of
acceptance of the implant relative to LASIK?  What's your most important market?


JG: I'm afraid that we'd be compromising our customers' wishes if we did that, because 
they don't want to deal with a lot of questions about their consumer marketing and about 
their practice from analysts or anybody else right now.

JM: Geographically, is there a much greater level of activity in the fast-tracks on the 
west coast than perhaps, say, the northeast, I mean, is there any geographic concentration
we're dealing with at this point?

JG: It's pretty balanced around the country.  I'd say that generally speaking there's 
relatively less activity in the northeast because it was a sales territory which was 
vacant for a couple of months late last year.




Richard Dixon (Dixon Consulting): I've been a keratoconus patient for 33 years. I'm 
interested in your clinical trials in Europe, how soon they'll be complete and your 
expectations for FDA approval in the US?

TL: A doctor that was one of our investigators in Europe approached me 2 1/2 years ago 
with the idea that he could, he thought he could treat keratoconus with Intacs.  If you're
familiar with the product, the ring is actually split into two halves, and the doctor has
the ability to use different size segments to treat the cone.  He went ahead on his own, 
he treated only aggressive keratoconus patients, and he's got close to 20 right now, with
a number of them out to two years.  These patients - and it's all anecdotal and there's 
no guarantee - the patients that he's treated so far have not had any progression of the 
disease since inserting the Intacs.  Then what we've found is that a condition called 
post-LASIK ectasia, or LASIK-induced keratoconus, a doctor from another country outside 
the US approached us a year ago saying that he was seeing a fair number of these that were 
five years out, and it's very much like keratoconus, and he has a separate study under way
for that.  After that, we decided to go forward with a formal study in Europe which is 
now underway, which we announced in January, and we hope, if all goes well, that we can 
get, first of all that we can get approval in Europe by year-end or the first half of next
year.  With that, there's a young man here in the US named Robert Gavin who's also a 
keratoconus patient, and he used to be a TV star with the TV show "Baywatch," and he's 
been working with us quite a bit.  He runs a web site called www.kcenter.org I believe, 
and with his background work and his encouragement we think there's a group of doctors 
that may begin a study this year on a "physician IDE [?]" basis - the company is not in a 
position right now to sponsor it in the US, but we hope that the physicians will file an 
IDE and we should have a study under way really run by the doctors, not by the company, 
sometime this year, we hope.

RD: Thank you very much for your response. Your marketing department works very well; as I
was on hold, my fax machine just generated six pages.  I commend you on your research for
keratoconus, and to the financial consultants sitting in the crowd there, if this is a 
solution for keratoconus, invest money in this company.

TL: Just to add to that,  in the last study that was done on it, it was shown that the 
incidence of keratoconus is about one in 2000.  With the advent of refractive surgery and 
the improvement in diagnostic techniques, many of the experts believe it is one out of a 
thousand, possibly one out of 500.  So the incidence of keratoconus is believed to be much
higher than it was believed to be just a few years ago, and represents a sizable 
therapeutic application for Intacs if the trials continue to go as well as they have thus 
far.




Larry Hamovich (HMTC): (Joined late - asked about procedure numbers)

MFC: We estimate greater than 1,100, based on registry cards coming back, we expect to see
some more coming back over the next few weeks.

LH: Are you able to break down the revenue into kits and Intacs sales?

MFC: We did around 10 kits or so, the break-out's about 50-50 between Intacs and kits.

LH: So roughly $.5 million kits, $.5 million Intacs?

MFC: In that ballpark, yeah.

LH: So the ASP is about $500

MFC: Yes, we're holding firm on the average selling price currently.

LH: OK. The reason I'm asking is that I was under the impression that during the quarter 
you were running some sort of promotional deals for the fast-track centers enabling them 
to acquire Intacs at a lower price than the full selling price; I wonder if you can help 
me understand where I perhaps went wrong on that.

MFC: We are reporting and tracking our procedure volumes because that's one of the key 
metrics going forward.  That doesn't always directly translate to revenue because some 
doctors have inventory from the starter kit, and there are some programs which John will 
talk about as well.

JG: To help a new fast-track practice get down the learning curve quickly both clinically 
and commercially, we are letting them launch and intro special offer, usually around $999,
which is enabled by a free Intac.  It allows them to do a significant number of 
procedures in a short amount of time, attracting consumers while still making some money 
on the procedure.  But that is an intro offer, there's not a lot of procedures it applies 
to, and it's for a new fast-track practice.  The other point, just to elaborate on what 
Mark mentioned earlier, is that there are practices out there who still have inventory, 
and so not every procedure translates into an Intac reorder today.

LH: Okay, so there really wasn't much of a change in the ASP, though, because I had heard 
that there was a fairly strong promotion going on, and it sounds like it was very limited,
and therefor didn't affect your ASPs very much.

JG: That's correct.

LH: You mentioned that there were some changes in the sales force.  How many salesmen did 
you have at the end of 1999, and how many did you have at the end of Q1?

MFC: It's the same number, we're not changing the number of salespeople, it's still 15.


LH: I guess I'm confused because I heard there was a lot of turnover.  Have you been able 
to replace all the ones that have been turned over?

MFC: We have replaced already or have commitments for all 15 of our territories currently.

LH: How many territories are now filled, though?

MFC: All but one, 14 out of 15.  I would say that this is less of an instrument-selling, 
commision sort of sales force, and more of a consultative marketing partnership sort of 
sales force.  The initial group we had in did a very good job of selling instrument kits, 
but along the way the focus of the company shifted from a procedure focus, and that means 
that a practice needs help on a regular basis in training their staff, in talking to 
consumers, in setting up the co-op programs in the market, and that's what this new 
profile person is really good at doing.

LH: What type of company has this individual been coming from?

MFC: It depends, but as we invest more time and more resources in building optometric 
networks of referrals, it's logical that we get people who have expertise in this area, 
who come from contact lens companies, or companies who market contact lenses.

LH: I seem to recall [in the 4Q conference call] that there was a number that we were 
talking about in terms of revenue of about $15 million for the year, and I wonder if at 
this point you can revise this or give us better estimates.

MFC: I think you were thinking of street estimates, which varied from about $11 million to
$15 million for the year, and obviously people will take into consideration this 
quarter's revenue, and take a look at the procedure volume and work on their models, and 
then we can chat.





Roy Friedman (Edith [?] Foundation): My question concerns the small number of patients who
have experienced fluctuating vision or similar problems several months after 
implantation. 1)Why does fluctuating vision occur 2)Is the frequency of these 
complications declining over time as surgeons become more experienced 3)To what extent are
these kinds of problems holding back market acceptance?

TL: There is some of that is in the learning curve, second, some of is in the procedure 
itself, not in all cases, because of the fact that you have edema, and as the cornea 
closes around the Intacs you still have some instability, third, LASIK itself also has 
fluctuating vision, it's not talked about but it's there, so they're similar in that 
regard.  I would say that the big difference between us and a LASIK procedure is that, as 
somebody said, the best your going to see with LASIK is the day after surgery, and there 
is some slight regression over time. With Intacs, you'll get a very good result on day 
one, but vision will continue to improve over time, and there's a much better visual 
result that you will find after 30 days because of the nature of the procedure maintaining 
the central optical zone.  So there's a little that you give up early on with what people 
like to call the "Wow Factor," but at the end of the day, when you get through that 30 day
period you end up with a much higher quality of vision. That is certainly something that 
we're communicating to those that are considering getting Intacs. I do want to caution 
everyone that there a lot of things about LASIK in the first couple weeks that aren't 
talked about as well, because there's a healing response that they have.

[Discussion of low diurnal variation in a study of Intacs.  See "medical information" 
page.]

We learned last year that the high-volume production-line LASIK surgeon is not Intacs-
friendly, and what we have found, and we still find pockets of it, there's a lot of 
misinformation out there that's being communicated by people that have other interests in 
the marketplace, and we think that for the most part, particularly with our fast-track 
program, we've overcome most of that.





Matthew Campbell (Knot Partners): Should we assume that we will continue to spend around 
$10-11 million per quarter going forward?

MFC: We expect sales and marketing to go up a bit. The offsetting gains will come from 
higher revenue.  Our net loss was about $10 million roughly, and that's  approximately our
cash-flow rate.  On the R&D side, we'll have a little bit of an uptick dealing with our
clinical trials, our Phase IIIb, but that should trend down a bit over time.


MC: Is there a learning period for these new salespeople to get up to speed?

JG: Fortunately, not really, because as I said, the bulk of the job is not selling 
instruments, it's more working with the practice on a regular basis, and that's a skill 
that all of these people have used in previous jobs.  The only are were there's a little 
bit of a learning curve for some of them is in understanding our procedure, but we have a
pretty quick way of centralizing that kind of training for the new people.





Joseph Milsap (Huntley Securities): How many surgeons and associates were trained in the 
first quarter?  Also, address the issue clinically, if at all possible, why do the high-
volume physicians that presumably would be some of the more peer-respected practitioners
be so averse to the Intacs product line?

TL: 32 surgeons trained, mostly associates, which means they were affiliated with someone 
who'd already paid for a kit. The answer to your second question is that I've learned in 
my 30 years in surgical technology, is that when a surgeon is running at capacity with a 
procedure, they find it very difficult to get off their production line and do something 
else.  It's easier to see retrospectively.  Back in the 70's when angioplasty was new, the
bypass surgeons said that they didn't need to do angioplasty, that it was a silly thing 
to do; that I think typifies what you're seeing with the LASIK surgeons.  With the price 
discounting now that you're seeing in the LASIK market, when the surgeon is not running at
capacity, when he or she is trying to differetiate themself in the market, this is what 
we learned last year, this is where we're finding our success, this is our target market. 
It goes back to segmentation of the market, and finding what works best where, and we're 
finding that the higher volume center is - it's just too much of an uphill climb for us, 
it's just easier for us to go into another part of the market.






Joseph Thompson (J&W Securities): Have you looked at what your options might be if you get
close to running out of cash, to get through that difficult time?

TL: That discussion is ongoing, we've been faced with it for 14 years, and we're still 
going forward.  We're always concerned with our cash, and we'll work our way through; we 
have a product with a very high margin.  That's the best way to raise cash, and that's the
way we're focused on growing the business.





Roy Friedman (Edith [?] Foundation): Do you have plans to offer Intacs with thicknesses in
between the currently available thicknesses, and do you have any information you can 
share with us on the possibility of insurance coverage for Intacs?
 

TL: On the first part, yes, we're putting together a program on in-between sizes, which 
will boost the outcome for Intacs users.  [Excited about the under -1 diopter market. 
Study shows a third of this group is interested in refractive surgery, but LASIK walks a 
very fine line on the possibility of overcorrection.]

JG: We found that there are some doctors who are leveraging existing insurance coverages,
basically substituting Intacs for previous approved coverage, and we think that trend 
will continue to increase and that we'll be able to eventually capitalize on insurance 
plans as a source of business.