A Medical Device Daily

Salient Surgical Technologies (Dover, New Hampshire) reported Thursday that it plans an initial public offering of its common stock, but no details were disclosed in its filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. All shares of the stock to be sold in the offering would be offered by the company.

According to the SEC filing, the IPO could raise up to $86.3 million, but that figure was estimated for the purposes of calculating the registration fee and could change.

Bear Stearns and Piper Jaffray are acting as joint book-running managers and Wachovia Capital Markets is acting as co-manager for the proposed offering.

Salient develops surgical products based on its Transcollation technology for the sealing of blood vessels and other collagen-based structures.

According to the company, Transcollation technology integrates saline and radio frequency energy via saline-induced liquid electrodes that deliver thermal energy to selected tissues and bones. Current applications for the technology include reducing blood loss during and after orthopedic hip and knee reconstructions, multi-level spinal fusions and surgical oncology, Salient said.

According to the SEC filing, Salient plans to use the net proceeds from the offering for sales and marketing expansion, new product development, repayment of debts, working capital and for other general corporate purposes.

Aperio Technologies (Vista, California), a provider of systems and services for digital pathology, said it has completed a $20 million Series C financing.

Aperio said it would use the new capital to accelerate clinical market development, expand sales and operations, and develop new products in support of its digital pathology system, which includes its linear array-based ScanScope slide scanning systems, Spectrum information management software, image analysis applications and professional services.

Martin Felsenthal, a partner at HLM, joins Aperio’s board of directors.

“We believe that digital pathology has enormous potential to improve the quality and efficiency of pathology services,” Felsenthal said. “We are impressed with the considerable progress Aperio has made in biopharma and clinical applications, and believe that this additional funding will allow the company to expand its ability to address the needs of clinical customers, and to further strengthen its leadership position in this exciting market.”

HLM Venture Partners led the round and was joined by existing investors Galen Partners and Advanced Technology Ventures, and new investors Acadia Woods Partners and BlackRock Alternative Advisors.

HLM provides venture capital to emerging companies focused on healthcare information technology, healthcare services, and medical technology; Acadia provides seed and growth capital to private technology, media, and life sciences companies; BlackRock manages assets on behalf of institutions and individuals worldwide through a variety of equity, fixed income, cash management and alternative investment products.

In other financing activity:

• Predictive medicine company PreMD (Toronto) reported completing its debenture financing with several existing institutional investors and insiders, including Midsummer Investment.

PreMD reported the financing agreement with Midsummer earlier this month (Medical Device Daily, March 4, 2008). It said that the gross proceeds of about C$1.22 million will be used for general corporate expenses, with a focus on the company’s appeal to the FDA regarding its recent 510(k) submission for its skin cholesterol test, Prevu. After receiving a non-substantially equivalent letter from the FDA for Prevu in January, PreMD filed a request for a second-level review of its 510(k) submission (MDD, Feb. 13, 2008).

Brent Norton, president/CEO of PreMD, said, “We are facing some challenges, but with our FDA appeal underway and existing clinical trials continuing, this financing gives us the time we need to see the business through 2008. We hope to quickly resolve our FDA issues and proceed with the commercialization of our skin cholesterol test in the U.S. market.”

The debentures mature 18 months after issuance at an amount equal to C$1,176 per C$1,000 principal amount. PreMD has agreed to certain pre-payable forced redemptions at the option of the holders or the company.

• CytoCore (Chicago) reported selling about 5 million shares of new common shares at $2 a share, about $10 million total, to institutional and accredited investors. In addition, about 2.5 million three-year warrants exercisable at $2 a share will be issued. CytoCore said it will use the proceeds to buy equipment and for working capital.

Bathgate Capital Partners acted as the placement for 3,115,000 shares of the financing.

CytoCore develops cancer screening systems.

• GE Healthcare Financial Services (Chicago) reported providing a $160 million senior secured credit facility to Odyssey HealthCare (Dallas) for its recent acquisition of VistaCare (Scottsdale, Arizona), a provider of hospice care (Medical Device Daily, March 7, 2008).

Odyssey now operates about 110 Medicare-certified hospice care locations in 30 states that serve more than 12,000 patients daily.