A Medical Device Daily

Affymetrix (Santa Clara, California) reported completing its acquisition of USB (Cleveland), a private company developing molecular biology and biochemical reagent products. With completion of the acquisition, USB stockholders received about $75 million in cash.

“The acquisition of USB immediately expands our talent base, enhances our whole-product solution offering and creates new, long-term growth opportunities,” said Kevin King, president of Affymetrix. “Our customers will now be able to take advantage of a stronger portfolio of GeneChip products today and the incorporation of next-generation sequencing reagents into the products of tomorrow.”

USB develops enzymes, reagents and kits for life sciences research and industrial applications. The company’s offerings are grouped into three major product lines: molecular biology enzymes and kits, biochemical reagents, and products used in membrane protein research applications.

USB has about 100 employees who will be joining Affymetrix.

Affymetrix GeneChip microarray technology is used for analyzing complex genetic information. Its products are designed to accelerate genetic research and enable scientists to develop diagnostics and tailor treatments for individual patients by identifying and measuring the genetic information associated with complex diseases.

NewCardio (San Jose, California) reported the closing of a share exchange agreement with Marine Park Holdings (New York) whereby NewCardio is now a public company by way of reverse merger.

NewCardio’s common stock is currently quoted for trading on the Over the Counter Bulletin Board under the symbol NWCI.OB.

With closing of the agreement, the company said it completed a private placement financing of $8.2 million of 10% redeemable, non-voting Series A convertible preferred stock, plus warrants. Platinum-Montaur Life Sciences, and Vision Capital Advisors, participated in the financing.

“This is an exciting time for NewCardio as this transaction provides us with the financial flexibility to pursue our strategy and to aggressively participate in the growth of the cardiovascular diagnostic market,” said Dr. Branislav Vajdic, president/CEO of NewCardio and one of its co-founders.

Marine Park acquired all of the issued and outstanding capital stock of NewCardio. Concurrent share transactions with other parties required the cancellation of certain Marine Park shares resulting in an aggregate of 20.2 million shares of common stock issued and outstanding today.

As the surviving entity in the transaction, Marine Park assumed the operating business of NewCardio and changed its name to NewCardio.

Vajdic remains president/CEO and director of the new entity, with Robert Blair as chairman.

NewCardio’s software and hardware products and services are intended to improve the diagnosis and monitoring of cardiovascular disease (CVD), as well as cardiac safety assessment of drugs under development. The company’s 3D ECG platform is designed to reduce the time and expense involved in assessing cardiac status while increasing the ability to diagnose clinically significant conditions previously difficult to detect.

NewCardio said it intends to initially compete in two large segments of the cardiovascular disease diagnostic market: cardiac safety in drug development, and diagnostics.