A Medical Device Daily

ArKal Medical (Fremont, California) raised $17.5 million in a Series B financing round led by Thomas McNerney & Partners. Existing investors, Delphi Ventures and MedVenture Associates were also significant investors in this round.

ArKal is developing a novel continuous glucose monitoring system for the management of diabetes. ArKal's monitoring system is designed to eliminate many of the inconveniences of current glucose monitoring technologies.

"There is a lot of room to improve both convenience and ease of use in continuous glucose monitoring in the management of diabetes. ArKal Medical's technology has the potential to make an important advancement and address significant unmet needs in this market," said Pete McNerney cofounder and partner at Thomas McNerney and Partners.

"With this investment, we will fund the next stage of corporate and product milestones," said Arvind Jina, PhD, president /CEO of ArKal.

NewCardio (Santa Clara, California), a cardiac diagnostic and services company, reported that several members of senior management have, in aggregate, purchased about 118,000 shares of the company's common stock in open market transactions in the last three weeks.

Vincent Renz, the company's new president, Ihor Gussak, MD, PhD, the company's new chief medical officer and VP, and Kenneth Londoner, the company's senior director, business development and corporate finance, each acquired shares of NewCardio's common stock in the open market subsequent to the effectiveness of the registration statement at the end of August.

In aggregate, officers and directors now own about 36% of the outstanding stock in the company.

"I believe the current share price, impacted by the recent registration of shares from our initial financing and broader market conditions, does not accurately represent the long-term value NewCardio is creating," said Renz. "Despite being the most widely used diagnostic tool in cardiology, the ECG is not without flaws and I believe NewCardio's innovative, 3-D cardiac activity modeling software platform is poised to address these issues and add value to diagnostic, screening and drug development initiatives around the world."

NewCardio's development-stage software and hardware products and services are intended to improve the diagnosis and monitoring of cardiovascular disease, as well as cardiac safety assessment of drugs under development.

In other financing news, Health Systems Solutions (HSS; Tampa, Florida), a software and technology company, has entered into a $5 million preferred stock purchase agreement with its principal stockholder, Stanford International Bank, a member of the Stanford Financial Group.

Stanford has agreed to purchase up to $5 million of Series E convertible preferred stock. Pursuant to the agreement, Stanford will be granted warrants to purchase up to 833,334 shares of HSS common stock. The shares of Series E preferred stock will, at the option of Stanford, be convertible, in whole or in part, into shares of HSS common stock at an initial conversion price of $6 per share. Additionally, Stanford and HSS will terminate the convertible debenture purchase agreement currently in place.

The HSS portfolio of products and services extends across many segments of healthcare including home healthcare, medical staffing, acute and post-acute facilities, and telehealth/telemedicine, grouped into three segments: technology solutions, software and consulting.