A Diagnostics & Imaging Week

Inverness Medical Innovations (IMI; Waltham, Massachusetts) has entered into definitive agreements with funds affiliated with 17 accredited institutional investors to sell 5 million shares of its common stock in a private placement valued at $30.25 per share, raising proceeds of more than $151.25 million.

The purchase price represents a 7.6% discount to the stock's closing price of $32.75 per share on Aug. 17, when the sale agreement was reached. The company presently has 33 million shares outstanding.

IMI said it intends to use the proceeds for general corporate purposes, including repayment of indebtedness and future acquisitions. The transaction is expected to close later this week.

The company is currently restructuring and earlier this month reported a second-quarter loss of $10.6 million, or 33 cents per share.

IMI is a developer of in vitro diagnostic products and presently is exploring new opportunities for its lateral flow immunoassay and other technologies in a variety of professional diagnostic and consumer-oriented applications, including immunodiagnostics with a focus on cardiology, infectious disease and women's health.

Hansen Medical (Mountain View, California), a company developing robotic technology for the accurate positioning, manipulation and stable control of catheters and catheter-based technologies, reported that it has filed for an initial public offering (IPO) to raise up to $86.25 million, though the actual number of shares and per-share price have yet to be determined.

The underwriters of the offering will be Morgan Stanley & Co. and JP Morgan Securities as joint bookrunners and co-lead managers, and Thomas Weisel Partners and Leerink Swann & Co. as co-managers.

Hansen Medical believes robots can help doctors take better care of their cardiac patients. The company's Sensei system, which includes an electromechanical robot, assists in guiding the movement of diagnostic catheters for hard-to-reach places in the heart.

Currently in trials for FDA approval, the Sensei system and Artisan control catheters are designed to help simplify cardiology procedures and decrease treatment time.

Founded in 2002, the company plans to use IPO funds for product development, research, sales and marketing, and administrative activities. Chairman Russell Hirsch owns about 23% of the company through Prospect Venture Partners and affiliates.

In its filing, the company noted that it has experienced substantial net losses since its inception in late 2002. It reported net losses of about $4 million in 2003, $7.1 million in 2004, $21.4 million in 2005 and $11.4 million in the six months ended June 30, and as of June 30, the company had accumulated deficit during the development stage of $44.4 million. The company noted that it anticipates continued losses "for the foreseeable future."

In other financings news:

• CV Therapeutics (Palo Alto, California) said it has agreed to sell 9 million shares of its common stock at a purchase price of $9.50 per share in a public offering.

All of the shares are being offered by CV Therapeutics, and the company has granted the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to another 1.35 million shares to cover over-allotments, giving the offering a potential gross value of about $86.78 million.

CV Therapeutics is focused on applying molecular cardiology to the development of small-molecule drugs for the treatment of cardiovascular diseases.

The company's approved products include Ranexa, indicated for the treatment of chronic angina in patients who have not achieved an adequate response with other antianginal drugs. The company also co-promotes Aceon, an ACE inhibitor, for reduction of the risk of cardiovascular mortality or nonfatal myocardial infarction in patients with stable coronary artery disease and treatment of essential hypertension.

The company is also developing Regadenoson for use as a pharmacologic stress agent in myocardial perfusion imaging studies.

Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch & Co. acted as joint lead managers and joint bookrunners of the public offering.

• Elbit Medical Imaging (EMI; Tel Aviv, Israel) reported that following its announcement regarding a potential public offering from Aug. 16, it completed the stage of the institutional investor bidding (institutional stage) in connection with a public offering of units consisting of a new Series C notes and an increase of the existing Series A notes by means of a tender on the annual interest rate borne by Series C notes.

During the institutional stage, EMI said it received early commitment offers for the purchase of 554,728 units, for a total consideration of about NIS 620 million ($142 million), representing an over-subscription of 2 times the initial amount offered, 280,000 units.

Following the institutional stage, EMI accepted orders for 366,884 units for a total consideration of NIS 410 million ($94 million). The interest rate for Series C Notes, linked to the Israeli Consumer Price Index, determined following the institutional stage amounted to 5.4%.

EMI said it intends to offer a total of 458,605 units, including the 366,884 units with regard to which early commitments from institutional investors were received, in an aggregate consideration of NIS 1,116.9 per unit.

• LipoScience (Raleigh, North Carolina) reported the closing of a $13 million Series F financing.

Investors in the round include Camden Partners, GE Capital Equity Investments, Invesco Private Capital, Pappas Ventures, Sightline Partners, Three Arch Partners and Varian. Richard Johnston of Camden Partners was placed on the company's board.

"The fact that $7 million of the funding came from existing investors demonstrates a strong commitment to this company's vision and its prospects for the future," said Charles Sanders, MD, chairman of LipoScience.

"This funding will allow us to confidently invest in the deployment of our in vitro diagnostic system and to continue to drive growth and awareness for the NMR LipoProfile test," said Richard Brajer, president/CEO of LipoScience.

The company said that its NMR LipoProfile test is the only test that measures the number of LDL particles to accurately determine risk for heart disease. The company markets the NMR LipoProfile test to clinicians, commercial diagnostic laboratories and clinical research clients.

• Biosite (San Diego) said that certain non-officer employees were granted inducement stock options covering 37,825 shares of common stock, granted on condition that each option has been classified as a non-qualified stock option; has an exercise price equal to the fair market value on the grant date; has a 10-year term; and vests in 16 equal quarterly installments over four years.

Biosite develops proteomics products for diagnostics. It says that its Triage rapid diagnostics are used in more than 50% of U.S. hospitals and more than 50 international markets.