Stock Soars: The price of shares of...

Stock Soars: The price of shares of I-Flow Corp., which manufacturers intravenous equipment for home health care, nearly doubled Monday, prompting the Irvine company to disclose Tuesday that it has received a major new order.

Its common stock soared from 81 cents to $1.31 per share on the NASDAQ exchange Monday. On Tuesday, the stock closed at $1.19 after I-Flow announced that it had received an order worth “hundreds of thousands” of dollars from an undisclosed home health care company for 100 units of its Vivus infusion pump.

The pump, introduced last year, can be strapped to an ambulatory patient’s waist and deliver drugs or nutrients intravenously, said I-Flow spokesman Jim Dal Porto. The treatment is mainly used for AIDS and cancer patients.

The company also said that it has filed a patent application last month on a new piece of disposable drug-delivery equipment and hopes to begin marketing the product by July.

I-Flow lost $800,000 on revenues of $114,000 for the third quarter ended Sept. 30. Though it has yet to announce year-end earnings, Dal Porto said revenues would be less than $250,000. He said the company, which was founded in 1986 but did not introduce its first product until last year, does not expect to turn a profit in 1992.