Altair: Stimulus package hurts, doesn't help company

The federal government's economic stimulus package isn't providing much help yet to Reno's Altair Nanotechnologies Inc.

The company learned last week it didn't get any of the $38 million in stimulus spending it requested to develop large-scale energy storage system.

Altair's commercial customers, meanwhile, have delayed their orders while they wait to learn if they can use stimulus dollars.

"The stimulus bill has thrown us a curve," said Terry Copeland, Altair's president and chief executive officer.

And the company doesn't need any curves thrown in its direction right now.

Publicly held Altair reported a second quarter loss of $6.4 million, which compares with a loss of $5.7 million a year earlier. It posted negative revenues for the quarter as $180,000 in fresh sales were wiped out by $183,000 in returns on sales it made in earlier quarters.

The company raised nearly $13 million in the last 90 days through the sale of stock.

Copeland said the fresh equity helps Altair build inventories to meet orders that the company expects once the dust settles around stimulus grants.

The company, he said, also is awaiting word on a $1.8 million grant from the U.S. Army to develop a nanosensor. The grant money, which Altair expected to receive late last year, now is expected this autumn.

In the meantime, Altair said it sold a patented technology it developed to control phosphate levels in patients with kidney disease.

Spectrum Pharmaceuticals Inc., which previously held a license to develop the technology, will buy ownership of the patent from Altair for $750,000 worth of restricted stock in Spectrum.

Altair, which is getting out of the life sciences business to focus on development of large-scale batteries, also will get royalties on any products that Spectrum develops with the technology.

As part of its focus on battery systems, Altair said last week it signed a contract with Proterra LLC of Golden, Colo., for energy storage systems to be used in electric buses that Proterra is developing.

The contract is worth about $898,000, Altair executives said.

Copeland said Altair executives believe electric vehicles for mass transit will be one of the first markets to develop as large-scale users of electric systems.

The company also is working on large energy-storage systems to be sold to utilities.

Copeland said Altair's military contracts are intended to support research that the company would need to undertake on its own to develop products for commercial markets.

The company's stock dropped about 9 percent in the first hours after it disclosed the quarterly loss and acknowledged it was stymied in its bid for stimulus dollars.