A Medical Device Daily

Orthofix (Boston) said that it has established a new $300 million five-year credit facility, including a $200 million senior secured revolving line of credit and a $100 million senior secured term loan. JP Morgan Chase Bank acted as sole bookrunner and joint lead arranger along with RBS Citizens.

The new credit facility, which replaces the company's prior facility, includes a $50 million expansion feature and includes an interest rate of LIBOR plus 3.00% on both the revolving line of credit and the term loan. This compares with a rate of 6.75% the company had been paying on its prior facility.

“We are very pleased with the confidence expressed by the financial institutions participating in our new larger facility, which will provide Orthofix with a lower interest rate and more flexible covenants as well as additional borrowing capacity and available credit compared with our previous credit facility,“ said Bob Vaters, Orthofix's executive VP/CFO.

Orthofix plans to use the proceeds from the new facility to pay off the company's prior facility as well as for capital expenditures and other general corporate purposes.

Orthofix said it expects earnings per diluted share in the fourth quarter to increase by 5 cents from the new facility but does not expect any impact on third quarter earnings due to the interest savings being offset by a $500,000 charge to write-off the unamortized debt placement costs associated with the prior facility.

Orthofix makes minimally invasive surgical, and non-surgical, products for the spine, orthopedic, and sports medicine market sectors.

In other financing news, ClearCount Medical Solutions (Pittsburgh) reported the close of its $5 million Series B financing round. The company said it will use the funds to drive market penetration and research and development of its RFID-based solutions for hospital patient safety applications. ClearCount has developed the first FDA-cleared sponge counting and detection solution. The round was supported by both new and existing shareholders with participation by its leading shareholder, Draper Triangle Ventures, Midwestern-based Network Partner of Draper Fisher Jurvetson.

“Thanks to the strong backing of our investors, this past year ClearCount completed a valuable distribution deal, signed major new customers and introduced an important new product that is making surgical procedures safer every day,“ said David Palmer, CEO of ClearCount.

ClearCount is a device company focused on patient safety solutions. It said it has assembled an extendable RFID-based platform that provides a comprehensive solution to improve efficiency while preventing medical errors. ClearCount's SmartSponge and SmartWand-DTX systems are the first RFID enabled systems for counting and detecting surgical sponges, thereby improving patient and OR safety, enhancing productivity, and reducing cost.

Retained sponges are the most frequent and dangerous of retained surgical items (RSIs), a “Never Event“ resulting in non-payment to hospitals and significant risk to patients. By eliminating preventable hospital costs and delays associated with RSIs, including additional surgery and infection costs, litigation, unnecessary X-rays and anesthesia, ClearCount's products can provide hospitals an improved reputation at a rapid rate of return on investment.