Biolase Picture Brightens

St. Philip will take over for Federico Pignatelli, who has been serving as chairman and interim CEO of Biolase since late November. Pignatelli will continue to serve as chairman emeritus and president of the company.

"We look forward to Jake helping us make 2008 -- and our long-term future -- very rewarding times for Biolase, its employees and shareholders," Pignatelli stated on Monday. "Our challenge now is to execute."

False Start

This time, Biolase hopes that its comeback will last.

Early last year the company felt that it had pulled off one turnaround -- with help from Henry Schein -- already. But that recovery proved fleeting.

Now, investors could worry about the timing of this recovery as well. After all, Biolase is once again forecasting a strong fourth quarter ahead of a seasonally slow period for the company.

"There is typically a sizable decline in revenues between the fourth and first quarters," stressed former CEO Jones last spring. Still, "we had anticipated greater results in this year's first quarter than we actually obtained."

Regardless, Jones went on to assure, "we believe that this first quarter just ended will be our lowest revenue quarter" of the year.

But the disappointments grew more pronounced instead, as Biolase reported two more misses that culminated in the management shakeup late last year. To some experts, slowdowns in both domestic and international sales seemed to signal an outright end for the company.