A Medical Device Daily

Northfield Laboratories (Evanston, Illinois) reported that it has filed a shelf registration statement with the SEC, which would allow the company to offer and sell up to $100 million of its securities. The terms of any such future offerings would be established at the time of the offering.

Northfield Laboratories is developing an oxygen-carrying red blood cell substitute for the treatment of life-threatening blood loss, when an oxygen-carrying fluid is required and red blood cells are not available.

PolyHeme is a solution of chemically modified human hemoglobin that requires no cross matching and is therefore compatible with all blood types. It has a shelf life in excess of 12 months.

Health Discovery Corp. (HDC; Savannah, Georgia) reported that William Quirk Jr, a member of its board has made a $1 million loan to the company to fund its ongoing working capital requirements.

Quirk, HDC's largest investor, said he agreed to the funding to allow the company sufficient time to implement its business plan.

“As a result of his investment, HDC is now in a position to successfully conclude licensing and development efforts in the medical field, more vigorously protect our intellectual property, and accelerate our initial efforts in the communications and information technology arena,” said Stephen Barnhill, MD, HDC's chairman and CEO.

Through application of its technology, HDC is a biology-oriented biomarker and pathway discovery company providing First-Phase Biomarker Discovery. The company's pattern recognition tools have potential in other markets such as radiology, Internet search and spam, homeland security, financial futures and other areas where analysis of large volumes of complex data is required.

In other financing news, Microtek Medical Holdings (Alpharetta, Georgia) reported that its board of directors has authorized the repurchase of up to an additional 2 million shares of the company's common stock.

This authorization increases the number of shares authorized to be repurchased under the company's existing share repurchase program from 2 million shares to 4 million shares. These amounts include about 1.7 million shares previously purchased by the company since the inception of its repurchase program. As modified, the share repurchase program has no set expiration date.

Microtek designs solutions for patient care, occupational safety and management of infectious and hazardous waste.

MDD releases new report on orthopedics market

The publishers of Medical Device Daily have just released a new 200-page report focusing on the orthopedics sector, Orthopedics 2006 – Trends, Challenges and Opportunities.The report provides detailed insight into the trends impacting the orthopedics sector.

By focusing on emerging technologies and device developments in orthopedics, this new report divides the industry into its primary sub-sectors, and describes the key companies and device technologies being developed in each. “Aside from analysis we provide on the emerging sectors, we also delve into which areas are most vulnerable to current pricing pressures, such as the impact of hospital influence on the industry, along with recent FDA actions,” says Associate Managing Edi-tor Holland Johnson.

For information on purchasing this report, call our customer service department at 1-800-688-2421 or 1-404- 262-5476, or go to www.MedicalDeviceDaily.com.