A Medical Device Daily

Luminex (Austin, Texas) reported the closing of its previously disclosed underwritten public offering of 4,025,000 shares of its common stock, including 525,000 shares issued in connection with the underwriters' exercise of their over-allotment option following the pricing of the offering (Medical Device Daily, June 27, 2008).

The offering price to the public was $19.91 per share.

The company said the net proceeds from the offering were about $74.3 million, after deducting estimated expenses and underwriting discounts and commissions.

Luminex said it intends to use the net proceeds from the offering for general corporate purposes, including research and development, potential acquisitions and capital expenditures.

J.P. Morgan Securities and UBS Investment Bank were joint book-running managers for the offering. Avondale Partners, Canaccord Adams and Leerink Swann were co-managers.

Luminex develops biological testing technologies with applications throughout the life sciences industry. The company's xMAP system is an open-architecture, multi-analyte technology platform that is designed to deliver fast, accurate and cost-effective bioassay results to markets as diverse as pharmaceutical drug discovery, clinical diagnostics and biomedical research, including the genomics and proteomics research markets.

superDimension (Minneapolis), a private company that develops minimally invasive interventional pulmonology devices, reported the completion of a round of private equity financing totaling $22.3 million.

The company's first product, the inReach system, provides minimally invasive electromagnetic navigation (similar to GPS) to distant regions of the lungs, enabling doctors to diagnose lung cancer at earlier stages and potentially provide more timely treatment.

To date, the company said it has treated more than 3,500 patients.

"This round of financing will accelerate the company's investment in sales and marketing to meet and accelerate the growing worldwide demand for inReach," said Daniel Sullivan, superDimension president/CEO.

In other financing news:

• DSM Biomedical (Heerlen, the Netherlands) reported that it will receive funding from the Biomedical Materials Program (BMM), a Dutch public/private partnership in biomedical materials.

In total BMM allocated more than 150 million ($78.76 million) to seven R&D projects, four of which were initiated by DSM.

The funding will help DSM to expand its R&D portfolio and accelerate the development time of new biomedical materials it said.

Specifically, DSM received funding for its participation in NANTICO, PENT, IDiDAS and SMARTCARE. The NANTICO project focuses on the development of medical coating technologies for the prevention of implant-associated infections. In PENT the aim is to develop drug delivery therapies for treatment of poorly vascularized tissues such as the human heart after an infarct.

The target for the IDiDAS project is the treatment of intervertebral disc degeneration – the major cause of chronic low back pain – via drug delivery and smart polymer implants. The key objective in SMARTCARE is to improve cardiac function in patients suffering from heart failure by means of polymer-enabled delivery of repair cells.

The approval of these four projects by BMM yields an expansion of the DSM Biomedical R&D department in Limburg, the Netherlands with at least eight new scientists for whom the recruiting process will start immediately. Actual start of the projects is slated for this fall.

"Open innovation is an important area for DSM Biomedical. By joining forces with industrial and academic partners, we will be able to significantly speed up the development of better biomedical materials for caregivers," said President Steve Hartig. "The funding we received today shows the recognition for the quality of the projects we are working on."

• Cardium Therapeutics (San Diego) reported that it has completed a registered direct offering with an institutional investor that participated in its prior financing for the purchase of shares of its common stock and warrants to purchase additional shares of common stock.

The transaction resulted in gross proceeds to Cardium of about $3.25 million, before placement agent fees and offering expenses and excluding any future proceeds from the exercise of the warrants issued in the offering.

Empire Asset Management Company was financial advisor and sole placement agent for the transaction.

Cardium and its subsidiaries, InnerCool Therapies and the Tissue Repair Co. (both San Diego), are medical technology companies primarily focused on the development of therapeutic products and devices for cardiovascular, ischemic and related indications.

• Continucare (Miami) reported that its board approved a 3.5 million-share increase to its previously disclosed stock repurchase program, bringing the total number of shares of common stock authorized for repurchase under the program to 10 million shares.

Since the inception of the program in 2005, Continucare has repurchased 6,488,000 shares of its common stock at a total cost of about $14.4 million. With this increased authorization, an aggregate of 3,512,000 shares are currently available for purchase under the plan.

Continucare provides primary care physician services on an outpatient basis through a network of medical facilities and independent physician affiliates in the State of Florida.

• MIV Therapeutics (Atlanta) a developer of next-generation coatings and advanced drug-delivery systems for cardiovascular stents and other implantable devices, reported the effectiveness of the reverse split of its common stock in the ratio of 1-for-10.

The company's common stock began trading at the market opening on Monday on a split-adjusted basis under the symbol MIVI. The reverse split is intended to enable the company to increase its marketability to institutional investors.

"The reverse split is part of a series of strategic actions we are taking to strengthen our financial position for future growth and development," said Dr. Mark Landy, president/CEO of MIV.