A Medical Device Daily

Anulex Technologies (Minnetonka, Minnesota) reported that it has secured a $7 million capital growth term loan from Silicon Valley Bank.

The company said the loan proceeds will be used primarily to support its research and development efforts, completion of the clinical study, and expansion of the sales force.

"This growth capital loan provides additional resources for increased investment in our commercialization efforts and product pipeline, as we complete enrollment in our post market clinical study to further prove the benefits of preservation and repair of the annulus," said Michael McCormick, Anulex's president/CEO.

Anulex said its products have been involved in more than 3,300 procedures to date. The Xclose and Inclose systems are FDA cleared for soft-tissue approximation and repair. These systems provide access for closure to facilitate the repair of the anulus fibrosus following a minimally invasive spinal microdiscectomy procedure.

U.S. Genomics (Woburn, Massachusetts) reported tht it has received a $4.5 million equity investment from BD (Becton, Dickinson and Co.; Franklin Lakes, New Jersey) and that the companies have entered into a strategic collaboration for development of a novel infectious disease diagnostic platform. The collaboration will focus on application of U.S. Genomics' DirectLinear Analysis technology (DLA) for the detection of a wide range of infectious organisms in a single molecular diagnostic test.

The companies said that a diagnostic platform based on DLA has the potential to provide information to physicians concerning pathogen identity, virulence and drug resistance within hours, as opposed to the multi-day techniques such as culturing, plating, and staining that are done today.

U.S. Genomics has invested in excess of $50 million in DLA technology, which integrates novel labeling strategies, advanced microfluidics and optical engineering to enable pathogens to be identified by rapidly analyzing individual DNA molecules present in a clinical sample. The company said the technology is capable of simultaneously detecting a broad range of infectious organisms in a single diagnostic test. The companies believe that a diagnostic test based on DLA has the potential to provide clinicians and doctors' information important for patient health, such as which drugs a specific pathogen may be resistant to, and which drugs could be used for most effective patient treatment.

DLA technology, developed with support from venture capital investors, NSF, DARPA, and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, also has the potential to be applied in applications such as patient screening, hospital monitoring, epidemiology and forensics.

U.S. Genomics is developing single molecule biology technologies for diagnostics and biodefense applications.

In other financing news, Hanger Orthopedic Group (Bethesda, Maryland) reported the public offering of 2.5 million shares of its common stock by Ares Corporate Opportunities Fund. The shares being offered are a portion of the currently outstanding shares issued to Ares in August 2008 in connection with the conversion of all of Hanger's Series A convertible preferred stock into common stock (MDD, Aug. 26, 2008). Upon completion of the public offering of these shares, the overall number of outstanding shares of Hanger will be unchanged.

The company said it will not receive any proceeds from this transaction. Citi is the sole book runner for the underwritten offering.

Hanger is a provider of orthotic and prosthetic patient care services. It owns and operates 661 patient care centers in 45 states and the District of Columbia, with more than 3,500 employees.