A Medical Device Daily

NxStage Medical (Lawrence, Massachusetts) reported that it has entered into a $50 million credit and security agreement from a group of lenders, led by Merrill Lynch Capital, for a term of 42 months. The credit facility consists of a $30 million term loan and a $20 million revolving credit facility.

NxStage said that it drew $25 million under the term loan at closing, with the remainder expected to be drawn within the next six months. The company said it used $4.9 million of the proceeds from the term loan to repay a loan with Silicon Valley Bank.

The initial draw under the term loan bears interest at a rate of 10.77% and requires payment only of interest until the end of 2008. Beginning on Feb. 1, 2009, principal will be repaid in 29 equal monthly installments. The term loan has a final payment fee of 3% to be paid at the time of loan payoff.

The $20 million revolving loan facility is based on a percentage of NxStage’s accounts receivable, inventory and field equipment. The interest rate on the revolver is one-month LIBOR plus 4.25%.

NxStage said it didn’t draw any amounts under the revolver at closing. At the time of closing the borrowing base on the revolver was about $13 million.

“This credit facility provides NxStage with additional financial flexibility to support the growing needs of our commercial operations,” said Robert Brown, company CFO.

NxStage manufactures systems for treating end-stage renal disease and acute kidney failure.

In other financing news:

• Inverness Medical Innovations (IMI; Waltham, Massachusetts) reported closing its previously announced public offering on Nov. 20.

IMI sold 13,634,302 shares at $61.49 a share. The total number of shares included 1.8 million shares sold to the underwriters upon their exercise of their over-allotment option in full. Certain selling stockholders of IMI also sold 165,698 shares in the offering.

Net proceeds to Inverness were about $806.4 million.

UBS Investment Bank, Jefferies & Company and Merrill Lynch & Co. are acting as joint book-running managers for the offering. Leerink Swann and Stifel, Nicolaus & Company acted as co-managers for the offering.

• HearAtLast Holdings (Toronto) said it has completed a $1 million private placement of its restricted common stock.

HearAtLast on Nov. 2 closed its initial round of private equity financing since going public and obtained investment funds totaling $1 million for the purchase of 666,667 shares of restricted common stock, at $1.50 a share.

The private equity investors have agreed to a two-year lock-up on re-sale of the shares in the public market.

As a condition of the private placements, Matteo Sacco, CEO of HearAtLast, has agreed to return to treasury and cancel 666,667 shares of HearAtLast’s common stock he holds to eliminate any dilution to current shareholders.

“This initial funding tranche will provide us with the necessary capital to continue the aggressive expansion set forth in our business plan,” said Sacco.

HearAtLast Holdings owns and operates its subsidiary HearAtLast, a chain of hearing stores that sell digital hearing aids and testing services.

• Essilor (Charenton-Le-Pont, France) reported that it has cancelled 700,000 shares as part of its commitment to shareholders to offset the dilutive impact of stock option and performance share plans.

At the end of 2006, Essilor’s board authorized the granting of 930,740 stock options and 576,264 performance shares to employees. These grants will potentially lead to the issuance of up to 1,507,004 new shares between 2009 and 2011, depending on Essilor’s share performance.

Essilor said it is committed to protecting shareholders interests by implementing share buybacks and that since the beginning of the second half the company has bought back and canceled 400,000 convertible bonds, due 2010, reducing by 800,000 the number of shares to be issued in the event that the bonds are converted; and has canceled 700,000 shares held in treasury, in order to offset the dilutive impact of these grants.

• North American Scientific (NAS; Chatsworth, California) said it executed a seventh amendment and forbearance to its loan and security agreement with Silicon Valley Bank. The amendment includes: an extension of the maturity date of the loan agreement to Dec. 20, 2007; an extension of the maturity date of the bridge loan sublimit to the earlier of Dec. 20, 2007, or the date NAS closes a private investment public equity transaction; and a forbearance by the bank from exercising its rights and remedies against NAS, until the bank determines to cease such forbearance, due to the defaults under the loan agreement resulting from NAS failing to comply with the tangible net worth covenant in the loan agreement as of July 31, 2007, Aug. 31, 2007, and Sept. 30, 2007.

NAS also granted a warrant to the bank to purchase additional shares of stock, executed a second amendment to the loan agreement with Agility Capital to extend the maturity date of the Agility loan agreement from Nov. 20, to Dec. 21, 2007, and the company executed an amendment to the agreement with John Friede, a director and stockholder of NAS, to extend the maturity date of the Friede loan agreement from Nov. 20, 2007, to Dec. 20, 2007. In connection with the amendment to the Agility agreement, North American granted a warrant to Agility to purchase additional shares of common stock. In the amendment to the Friede loan, the amount which may be borrowed by NAS was reduced from $500,000 to $250,000.