A Medical Device Daily

NuVasive (San Diego), a company developing products for minimally disruptive surgical treatments for the spine, said that it plans to offer institutional buyers about $200 million in senior notes, convertible to NuVasive shares, due 2013.

Initial buyers will have the option to purchase up to $30 million additional notes to cover over-allotments, the company said.

NuVasive said it intends to use the offering proceeds for general corporate purposes, including potential acquisitions. The company also plans to enter into convertible note hedge transactions with the initial buyers or their affiliates, and it intends to use part of the proceeds to pay for the cost of the hedge transactions.

The company said it also intends to enter into separate warrant transactions with the counter-parties, resulting in additional proceeds, and would partially offset the cost of the convertible note hedge transactions. If the initial purchasers exercise their over-allotment option, the company will enter into additional convertible note hedge and warrant transactions.

In other financing activity:

• Predictive medicine company PreMD (Toronto) reported an agreement with Midsummer Investment for an offering of C$1.22 million in unsecured debentures.

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.

The placement proceeds are to be used for general corporate purposes.

The company also will issue about 5 million common share purchase warrants, exercisable for five years into one common share at $0.2759, equal to 100% of the five-day volume-weighted average price of the common shares on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

The sale of the debentures and warrants is expected to close on or before March 12.

PreMD develops rapid, non-invasive tests for the early detection of diseases.

• Iris International (Chatsworth, California), maker of urinalysis systems and consumables for use in hospitals and commercial laboratories, said its board has authorized repurchase of up to $15 million in common shares over a 12-month period.

Iris said it expects to fund the share repurchase from cash on hand. The company has about $30 million in cash with no debt and is expecting strong cash flows from operations in 2008.