Topic: How To Invest

Q: Hi Pat: I would value your opinion on Glaukos Corporation, which makes an effective treatment for glaucoma. I have had one eye successfully treated and am waiting to have the other one done. There are hundreds of thousands of victims of this disease in the world, and no other treatment is as effective. Please comment. Kind regards.

Article Excerpt

A: Glaukos Corporation, $41.61, symbol GKOS on NYSE (Shares outstanding: 34.9 million; Market cap: $1.4 billion; www.glaukos.com), develops and markets medical devices and therapies to treat glaucoma. That disease is the result of excessive pressure on the eye’s optic nerve; it’s also the leading cause of blindness. Glaukos was a mid-2015 new issue with a price of $18 per share. It fell to under $15 by early 2016. However, it then started to take off, hitting a high of $52.50 in early 2017. It dropped to $23.08 later that year, but it has risen since. The company’s main product is a small medical device called iStent, which helps to lower pressure on the optic nerve and so reduces further vision loss due to glaucoma. At 1.0 millimetres in length and 0.33 millimetres wide, the implant is the smallest medical device ever to be approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Glaukos launched the implant in the U.S. in 2012. Surgeons have now placed…