A Medical Device Daily

MiCardia (Irvine, California) reported completing a $9 million Series B preferred financing, led by HBM Biocapital, with additional shares sold to Japan Asia Investment Company, the MedFocus Family of Funds, the BioStar Private Equity Fund and a number of private individuals.

The company said that the proceeds will be used to further develop the its Dynamic Adjustable Cardiovascular Implant Technologies and initial human clinical trials for its initial products.

MiCardia is a developing a novel technology for the minimally invasive and non-invasive adjustable cardiovascular implants for the treatment of various stages of Congestive Heart Failure (CHF). It says that its goal is “to provide a less-invasive, and potentially non-invasive, method of treating advanced CHF patients,” and that it has filed 22 patents covering its approach to treating mitral valve disease and late-stage heart failure.

Samuel Shaolian, president of MiCardia, said that the new financing “will enable us to accelerate our development plans and move more quickly into human clinical trials and the regulatory approval processes in both the U.S. and internationally.”

The Life Sciences Greenhouse of Central Pennsylvania (LSGPA; Pittsburgh) reported a new investment of $500,000 into INRange Systems (Altoona, Pennsylvania), developer of a system to remotely deliver and monitor drug therapy compliance.

It said that funding – to be used to commercialize the system and begin pilot trials — will be matched by other investors, and follows an LSGPA investment of $250,000 last February.

Christopher Bossi, company president, estimates more than 200,000 people die every year as a result of prescription drug errors and non-adherence to their prescribed drug therapy.

The INRange technology uses a medication blister card, medication scheduling software used by a pharmacist, and a small delivery device placed in the patient's home and linked to the appropriate healthcare professionals via wireless or broadband connection.

“We at INRange are addressing this problem with our proprietary Remote Medication Management System, which you can think of as a 'smart medicine cabinet' linked directly to a healthcare provider,” said Bossi, adding that the system has the potential to reduce overall healthcare costs as well.

The cost of drug-related morbidity and mortality is more than $177 billion annually, according to a 2001 article in the Journal of the American Pharmaceutical Association. A significant proportion of these medication errors are directly attributable to patients who fail to take the medication as prescribed.

INRange said it hopes to begin commercial sales of its system to remotely deliver, manage, and monitor patients' drug therapy and their adherence in their home in the fourth quarter of 2006.

The Life Sciences Greenhouse of Central Pennsylvania supports commercialization of discoveries in the life sciences, providing seed funding and business support services to central Pennsylvania's most promising early-stage life sciences companies.

In other financing activity:

• Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings (LabCorp; Burlington, North Carolina) reported the results of its offer to purchase up to $744 million in aggregate principal amount at maturity of its Liquid Yield Option Notes due 2021 (the LYONs) for cash pursuant to the terms of the LYONs. The holders' option to surrender their LYONs expired at 5 pm, (EDT), Sept. 21.

LabCorp has been advised by the paying agent, The Bank of New York, that about $34,000 in aggregate principal amount at maturity of LYONs were validly surrendered for purchase and not withdrawn. LabCorp has accepted all such LYONs for purchase at a price of $741.92 in cash per $1,000 in principal amount at maturity. The aggregate purchase price for all the LYONs validly surrendered for purchase and not withdrawn was about $25,225.28. LabCorp has forwarded cash in payment of the purchase price to the paying agent to distribute to the tendering holders.

This results in about $743,966,000 in aggregate amount at maturity of LYONS outstanding.

LabCorp commercializes new diagnostic technologies, reporting annual revenues of $3.3 billion in 2005, approximately 24,000 employees nationwide, and more than 220,000 clients, LabCorp offers assays ranging from routine blood analyses to HIV and genomic testing.