A Medical Device Daily

Cyberonics (Houston) reported that it has repurchased, in private transactions, $12.7 million face value of its 3% convertible notes, due 2012, for about $10 million in cash, excluding accrued interest.

As a result of these repurchases, the company said that about $84.7 million of the convertible notes remain outstanding. As of July 25, Cyberonics had about $101 million in cash. Since that date, Cyberonics said it has used a total of $35 million to repurchase the convertible notes when combining this most recent repurchase sum with the $25 million repurchase reported in early September (Medical Device Daily, Sept. 4, 2008).

"This repurchase continues the improvement to our balance sheet by reducing our debt position while maintaining an adequate level of cash," said Dan Moore, president/CEO of Cyberonics. "Based on the two convertible note repurchases completed this quarter, we will record a one-time gain of approximately $5.4 million on a pre-tax basis during our second quarter ending October 24, 2008, partially offset by the acceleration of approximately $0.8 million in deferred origination costs."

Cyberonics is the developer of the Vagus Nerve Stimulation (VNS) Therapy implant system, FDA-approved for the treatments of epilepsy and treatment-resistant depression..

Arteriocyte (Cleveland), a clinical stage biotech company, reported that it has been awarded $496,000 through the Global Cardiovascular Innovation Center (GCIC; Cleveland), to continue research on its lead stem cell therapy (ACY001) for use in chronic coronary ischemia. This funding is in addition to the first year GCIC support received in 2007 to accelerate the company's cardiac stem cell therapy development.

Under the GCIC project, Arteriocyte participates as one of a number of companies working as research partners with the Cleveland Clinic.

Arteriocyte is developing stem cell therapies for human clinical applications. In October of 2007, Arteriocyte partnered with DW Healthcare Partners (Salt Lake City) and Comerica to create Arteriocyte Medical Systems (AMS; Cleveland), to commercialize and distribute devices and point-of-care surgical solutions (MDD, Oct. 26, 2007).

AMS also has a partnership with Medtronic (Minneapolis) that includes a worldwide exclusive distribution agreement for the company's Magellan Autologous platelet separation device by Medronic's Cardiac Surgery division.

GCIC is a $250 million research and product development consortium made possible through a $60 million grant from the State of Ohio's Third Frontier Project.

In other financing news:

• Arrhythmia Research Technology (ART; Fitchburg, Massachusetts) reported that its board has authorized the repurchase of up to $650,000 of the company's common stock, subject to prevailing conditions and price levels.

The company said that any repurchases will be made using its existing general corporate funds. The repurchase program replaces a previous inactive plan adopted in June of 2003 and may be modified, suspended or discontinued at any time.

As of Sept. 30, the company had 2,711,680 shares of common stock outstanding.

ART makes silver plated and non-silver plated conductive resin sensors and distributes metal snaps used in the manufacture of disposable ECG, EEG, EMS and TENS electrodes.

• Encorium Group (Wayne, Pennsylvania), a multinational clinical research organization, said that its board has approved a stock repurchase program of up to $250,000.

Encorium also said that its board has opened the trading window for directors, officers and employees to purchase shares of Encorium on the open market.

The company had about 20.6 million shares outstanding as of Sept. 30. And the company said it expects to report revenue of from $7.5 million to $7.8 million and a net loss of $ 1.8 million to $2 million for the quarter ended Sept. 30. The net loss includes about $850,000 in non-recurring transaction costs relating to the Linkcon and Prologue (Columbus, Ohio) transactions (MDD, June 13, 2008).

In addition, the company said it anticipates its net revenue will be about $31 to $33 million for the year ended Dec. 31, 2008, as previously reported. As of Sept. 30, Encorium said it had about $5.1 million in cash and expects its business backlog to be about $38 to $39.6 million.

Encorium specializes in the design and management of clinical trials and patient registries for pharma, biotech and medical device firms.

• BioMed Realty Trust (San Diego) reported that on Oct. 1, the underwriter exercised its over-allotment option in full to purchase another 1,125,000 shares of common stock in connection with BioMed's previously reported offering that priced that same day. In total, the company sold 8,625,000 shares of common stock, raising proceeds of about $212.4 million after deducting underwriter discounts, commissions and estimated expenses.

UBS Investment Bank is acting as sole underwriter for the offering.