A Medical Device Daily

HemoSense (San Jose, California) reported that it has closed a private placement in which it sold about 1.77 million shares of its common stock at $3.95 a share, raising roughly $7 million in gross proceeds from a single institutional investor, New Enterprise Associates.

“We believe that recent developments in our business and industry may provide new opportunities to grow our business and increase market share for INRatio®, our blood coagulation monitoring system,” said Jim Merselis, president/CEO of HemoSense. “Securing these additional funds provides us with flexibility to respond to opportunities on a timely basis.”

HemoSense develops handheld blood coagulation systems for monitoring patients taking warfarin.

Softscope Medical Technologies (St. Louis Park, Minnesota) an early-stage company developing technology designed to improve endoscopic procedures, reported that it has completed a $4 million Series A round of private financing. The financing was led by Thomas, McNerney & Partners and Accuitive Medical Ventures.

The company said that proceeds of the financing will be used to complete the product design, add key personnel and to obtain FDA clearance for the company’s initial device.

The company’s first product is aimed at improving colonoscopy, a procedure that is performed more than 15 million times in the U.S. each year. Softscope’s technology is designed to aid physicians by reducing procedure times and to make colonoscopies more comfortable for patients.

With the financing, two new members have joined Softscope’s board of directors: Kathy Tune from Thomas McNerney & Partners, and John Deedrick from Accuitive Medical Ventures.

In other financing activity:

• Trimedyne (Lake Forest, California) said it raised $3.25 million through a private offering of 2.6 million shares of common stock at a price of $1.25 per share.

The company said it will use the proceeds to finance the increase in sales anticipated from the introduction of its new Side Firing Laser Fiber to the market by Boston Scientific (Natick, Massachusetts) in the U.S. and Japan and by Lumenis (Yokneam, Israel) throughout the rest of the world.

The company said it plans to file a registration statement with the SEC covering the recently purchased shares, an additional 50,000 shares purchased by one of Trimedyne’s early investors, 212,000 shares underlying warrants issued to J. H. Darbie and another banker in connection with the private placement, which expire in December 2011 and are exercisable at $1.25 per share, and 600,000 shares reserved for issuance of stock options which may be granted in the future to officers, directors, employees and consultants under Trimedyne’s 2007 stock option plan.

After deducting an estimated $300,000 of offering expenses, net proceeds to the company from the recently purchased shares will be $3,012,500.

Trimedyne manufactures Holmium lasers and patented fiber optic laser devices for a variety of minimally invasive surgical procedures.

• MannKind (Valencia, California) reported the completion of a previously disclosed public offering of 20 million shares of its common stock at a public offering price of $17.42 per share valued at about $348.4 million (Medical Device Daily, Dec. 8, 2006).

Of the offered shares, 5,776,000 shares were sold to certain of MannKind’s officers and directors, including 5,750,000 shares sold to its chairman, CEO and principal stockholder, Alfred Mann.

The underwriters did not receive any underwriting discount on the shares sold to the MannKind officers and directors. The underwriters maintain an option to purchase up to an additional 3 million shares of MannKind common stock to cover any over-allotments during the applicable 30-day over-allotment option period. All of the shares were offered by MannKind.

The company also reported the completion of a concurrent public offering of $115 million aggregate amount of 3.75% senior convertible notes, due 2013, including $15 million aggregate principal amount of notes sold pursuant to the full exercise of an over-allotment option granted to the underwriters.

The notes are convertible into shares of MannKind’s common stock at an initial conversion rate of 44.5002 shares of common stock per $1,000 principal amount of notes, which represents an initial conversion price of about $22.47 per share.

J.P. Morgan Securities and Merrill Lynch & Co. are acting as joint lead managers and joint bookrunners of each of the public offerings. Wachovia Capital Markets, CIBC World Markets and Leerink Swann & Co. are acting as co-managers of the common stock offering.

MannKind develops therapeutic products for diseases such as diabetes and cancer. Its lead product, the Technosphere insulin system, is currently in phase 3 clinical trials in the U.S., Europe and Latin America, to study its safety and efficacy in the treatment of diabetes.