NAS gets Nasdaq listing notification

North American Scientific (NAS; Chatsworth, California) reported it received a letter from the Nasdaq Stock Market dated Dec. 11 providing formal notice that the Nasdaq Listing Qualifications Panel has granted the company’s request for a transfer from the Nasdaq Global Market to the Nasdaq Capital Market, and continued listing on the Nasdaq Capital Market, subject to the following exception:

On or before Jan. 17, NAS will inform the panel that it has received funds sufficient to put it in compliance with the Capital Market shareholders’ equity requirement of $2.5 million. Within four business days of the receipt of the funds, the company shall make a public disclosure of receipt of the funds and file a Form 8-K with pro forma financial information indicating that it plans to report shareholders’ equity of $2.5 million or greater for the fiscal year ended Oct. 31.

On or before Jan. 31, NAS will file its Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended Oct. 31, which it said will demonstrate shareholder’s equity of $2.5 million or greater.

NAS’s presentation and pro forma projections convinced the panel that the fund-raising activities being undertaken by the company would allow it to regain compliance with the Global Market shareholder’s equity requirement within a reasonable period of time, and also will qualify for listing on the Capital Market.

Consortium to address EHR’s security practices

A consortium of nine companies in the healthcare industry are banding together to create a set of security practices to better protect the information in electronic medical records.

The companies, including hospital-chain healthcare and medical-insurance providers Humana (Louisville, Kentucky) and Highmark (Camp Hill, Pennsylvania), have committed to use the security practices, which they will develop along with Health Information Trust Alliance (Hitrust; Frisco, Texas), an organization created to oversee the project.

Hitrust said it has received applications from more than 40 companies hoping to participate and its goal is to have 155 participants by the end of February. The companies hope to complete the security standards by the end of 2008.

“The industry has come to recognize that the current model for security isn’t working,” said Daniel Nutkis, Hitrust’s chief executive. These standards will make it possible for companies to “trust the people accessing their systems.”

Healthcare companies are currently required by law to treat the information they collect about patients securely. However, the law is vague, so each organization currently determines what steps to take on its own.

Consequently, healthcare companies must audit the data protection practices of the organizations they do business with to make sure there is no chance that the information they share will fall into the wrong hands, said Jon Roberts, senior VP and chief information officer at CVS Caremark (Woonsocket, Rhode Island), a pharmacy chain.

BioTime to build new database

BioTime (Emeryville, California) reported its plan to build a relational database for its Embryome Sciences subsidiary that will display information useful in identifying the hundreds of cell types that can be made from human and mouse embryonic stem cells. BioTime said it believes that this database will be the first of its kind in the stem-cell field.

Other products that Embryome Sciences plans to develop include growth and differentiation factors that can be used to induce embryonic stem cells to become desired cell types, and a line of purification tools useful to researchers in purification and quality control analysis of products in regenerative medicine.

BioTime makes blood plasma volume expanders, blood replacement solutions for hypothermic (low temperature) surgery, organ preservation solutions, and technology for use in surgery, emergency trauma treatment and other applications.

nSpire Health to relocate

nSpire Health (Longmont, Colorado) reported the relocation of its corporate headquarters to a 74,800-square-foot campus located in Longmont, Colorado. nSpire’s relocation is a direct result of the company’s growth in the respiratory diagnostics, clinical trials, and disease management markets.

The modern facility and $2 million redesign investment accommodates nSpire Health’s growing staff, implementation of lean manufacturing on new manufacturing lines, dedicated respiratory core lab facilities, state-of-the-art customer care and data center, and world-class training center for its hospital and pharmaceutical company customers.

nSpire Health makes respiratory care products.

TOMO new ticker symbol for TomoTherapy

Tomotherapy (Madison, Wisconsin) reported that it will change its ticker symbol on the Global Select Market to TOMO, effective Jan 1. The ticker symbol TOMO was not available at the time of the company’s initial public offering, it said, but is now available and reserved for the company.

Company management said that it believes that TOMO better represents the company’s name in the financial community.

TomoTherapy manufactures the Hi Art treatment system, a radiation system for the treatment of a wide variety of cancers.

Near-term strategy for Oxycyte

Synthetic Blood (Costa Mesa, California) reported its near-term development strategy for Oxycyte. It finalized its Phase IIb Oxycyte clinical trial protocol for the treatment of traumatic brain injury (TBI), and plans to initiate three pre-clinical animal studies in sickle cell disease, spinal cord injury and stroke in the first half of 2008. Oxycyte is the company’s perfluorocarbon (PFC) therapeutic oxygen carrier and blood substitute.

These Oxycyte development initiatives were determined at the company’s scientific advisory board (SAB) meeting conducted last week. Synthetic Blood also reported its intention to invite six to eight physicians to join the SAB in a move to broaden its specialties.

Synthetic Blood oxygen therapeutics and continuous substrate monitoring.