A Medical Device Daily

CardioNet (San Diego) said it raised about $81 million with its initial public offering of 4.5 million shares, priced at $18, the lower end of its expected range. The company said it expects net proceeds of $47 million which it will use to repay debt, for research and development and to buy or license products or businesses.

The maker of products to monitor clinical information had cut its IPO size to 3.4 million shares on March 18 and had forecast an $18 to $20 a share range.

In August last year, the company had initially filed for a $150 million IPO, and in February this year said it would sell 6.6 million shares for $22 to $24 each.

Citi, Lehman Brothers, Leerink Swann and Thomas Weisel Partners are underwriters for the IPO.

The company will sell 3 million shares in the offering, and stockholder Guidant Investment Corp. (GIC) will sell an additional 1.5 million, it said in a regulatory filing. GIC has granted to the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 675,000 shares of common stock to cover any over-allotments.

The CardioNet system incorporates a lightweight patient-worn sensor attached to electrodes that capture two-lead ECG data measuring electrical activity of the heart and communicates wirelessly with a compact, handheld monitor. The monitor analyzes incoming heartbeat-by-heartbeat information from the sensor on a real-time basis by applying proprietary algorithms designed to detect arrhythmias.

When the monitor detects an arrhythmic event, it automatically transmits the ECG to the CardioNet Monitoring Center, even in the absence of symptoms noticed by the patient and without patient involvement. At the monitoring center, certified cardiac monitoring specialists analyze the sent data, respond to urgent events and report results in the manner prescribed by the physician.

CardioNet has incurred net losses from its inception through Dec. 31, 2007, including losses of $11.5 million for the year ended Dec. 31, 2005; $7.6 million for the year ended Dec. 31, 2006; and $400,000 for the year ended Dec. 31, 2007.

CardioNet common stock is expected to begin trading on the Nasdaq Global Market under the symbol BEAT.

In other financing news:

Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Northeastern Pennsylvania (BFTP/NEP; Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania), a state-funded economic development organization, said it has approved investments of $335,000 in three Pennsylvania companies.

On the med-tech side, the group said it would invest $150,000 in Third Eye Diagnostics (), a company developing intracranial pressure monitoring technology, used to treat patients with a severe head injury, intracranial hemorrhage, or swelling due to a stroke.

• Medical Properties Trust (MPT; Birmingham) reported that its operating partnership, MPT Operating Partnership, has priced an offering of $75 million, and MPT has granted initial purchasers an option to buy another $11.25 million of notes to cover over-allotments.

The notes will pay interest semi-annually at 9.25% per annum and mature on April 1, 2013, with an initial exchange rate of 80.8898 shares of the company’s common stock per $1,000 principal amount of the notes, ran exchange price of about $12.36 a common share. The notes will be senior unsecured obligations of the operating partnership.

The company said it will use the proceeds from the offering to fund a portion of its previously disclosed $371 million acquisition of a portfolio of up to 21 healthcare facilities from HCP (Long Beach , California) (Medical Device Daily, March 17, 2008).

It said it intends to fund the remainder of the acquisition price of the properties with the proceeds it receives from its previously reported purchase and sale transactions with Vibra Healthcare (Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania), and a combination of equity financing and borrowings under existing credit and a new interim loan.

• Laser Energetics (LE; Mercerville, New Jersey) provided an update on its previously disclosed $12 million equity financing (Medical Device Daily, Feb. 12, 2008). The company will issue shares equal to about 27% of the company. At the purchase price of $0.139 a share, the investment values LE at about $44 million.

The investor, an affiliate of Beryl Wolk, also will receive warrants to purchase another 20 million shares of common stock at 8 cents a share.

“While the closing has taken longer than we hoped, there were many moving parts that had to come together in order to finalize the deal,” said Robert Battis, CEO. “[W]e will be adequately funded to bring to market all the exciting technology in our portfolio. We can immediately ramp up our production capacity to meet the demand for our BrightStar laser systems.

“We can close on two acquisitions that we are currently negotiating on, which will bring technology, revenue, and profit to our company. We will also be in a position to initiate a share buyback program ... .”

LE develops lasers used in medicine, science and the military.