A Medical Device Daily

Frazier Healthcare Ventures (Seattle), a healthcare focused venture capital and growth equity investor, reported the closing of its sixth institutional fund, Frazier Healthcare VI (FH VI).

FH VI reached its hard cap of $600 million of limited partner commitments in a first and final close, bringing total capital under management to $1.8 billion, Frazier Healthcare said.

Today's MDD food for med-tech thought

"Unlike women and breast cancer, studies for men and prostate cancer have been done in extremely limited ways. That's a problem for the average patient, and especially for the intelligent patient – in looking on the Internet, they don't get definitive answers."

— Jeffrey Forman, MD, medical director for 21st Century Oncology, at the Piper Jaffray Health Care Conference, "Physician panel on prostate cancer backs device advances," pp. 1, 5, 6.

"We are gratified by the overwhelming support from our existing investors and from the select number of highquality investors added to our roster," said Alan Frazier, managing partner. "We believe this strong support is a reflection of our proven strategy of investing in and partnering with the best entrepreneurs in the healthcare industry to develop innovative and sustainable companies."

Frazier Healthcare said it has seen nine portfolio companies go public or be acquired in the last fourteen months. In late 2006 and early 2007, three biopharma companies in Frazier Healthcare's portfolios completed IPOs – Cadence, Trubion and Amicus. Additionally, in late 2006 and early 2007, four growth equity companies were acquired – CHG Healthcare was acquired by JW Childs, Aspen Education Group was acquired by CRC Healthcare, Priority Solutions was acquired by Thermo Fisher Scientific, and MedPointe was acquired by Meda AB. Finally, this year, two biopharma companies were acquired – CoTherix was acquired by Actelion and Cerexa was acquired by Forest Laboratories.

Elbit Imaging (Tel Aviv, Israel) reported that its subsidiary, InSightec (Haifa, Israel), has an agreement for an internal round of financing of $30 million from its existing investors, including Elbit Ultrasound, GE Capital Equity Holdings, MediTech Advisors, and certain directors and officers of InSightec.

The investment is in the form of allotment and purchase of Series A preferred convertible shares of InSightec, which are convertible to InSightec's ordinary shares subject to certain conditions.

InSightec said it plans to use the proceeds for R&D, marketing and sales activities and general corporate purposes.

InSightec was founded to develop MR-guided Focused Ultrasound technology. The company's ExAblate technology is surgical system that combines MRI and Focused Ultrasound to non-invasively treat tumors inside the body without the need for incisions.

In other financing activity:

  • Medco Health Solutions (Franklin Lakes, New Jersey) said its board has approved a 2-for-1 stock split. The stock split, in the form of a dividend, will entitle all shareholders of record at the close of business Jan. 10 to receive one additional share of Medco common stock for each share held on that date. The stock dividend will be distributed Jan. 24. Since going public in August 2003, Medco noted that its stock has appreciated nearly four-fold. Medco is a pharmacy benefit manager.