A Medical Device Daily
IntraPace (Mountain View, California), a medical device company focused on the treatment of obesity, reported completing a $30 million Series D financing led by Vulcan Capital, the investment group of Paul G. Allen. IntraPace said it plans to use the funds to complete product development and worldwide clinical studies.
Founded by Mir Imran at In-Cube Laboratories, IntraPace is developing an endoscopically delivered gastric stimulator to treat obesity.
Eric Bell, Vulcan Capital's representative, said, “As obesity has grown to become a worldwide health crisis, solutions provided by IntraPace have an opportunity to improve the lives of millions of patients.”
In addition to Vulcan Capital, other participants include new investor, L Capital Partners, and existing investors, DFJ ePlanet, Oxford Bioscience Partners, Toucan Capital, Guidant (now Boston Scientific), Johnson & Johnson Development Corporation, CB Health Ventures, Halo Fund II, and The Angel's Forum.
In conjunction with the financing, Eric Bell of Vulcan Capital and Ting Pau Oei of L Capital Partners will join the IntraPace board.
Chuck Brynelsen, CEO of IntraPace, said that the company “is finalizing pre-clinical refinements to begin clinical trials in 2007. We are looking forward to a successful clinical trial showing definitive weight loss results in implanted patients. As with our Series C financing, this funding round was heavily oversubscribed by both current and new investors. We believe that this is evidence of the increasing interest in developing solutions for the treatment of obesity which has become a major health issue in the United States.”
According to the 2002 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Atlanta), obesity each year causes at least 300,000 deaths in the U.S. and annual medical costs for American adults with obesity are more than $100 billion.
Celerus Diagnostics (Santa Barbara, California) reported completion of $9 million in financing by private investors.
Page Erickson, CEO and founder of Celerus, said, “With this additional investment, our Rapid Diagnostic System will be completed and presented to the market by spring of 2007.”
Founded in 2004, Celerus's core technology is a rapid tissue-staining system designed for histology and cytology testing, including ImmunoHistoChemistry (IHC). Celerus says its system is six times faster than the best available system on the market, reducing test turn-around-time from 90 minutes to 15 minutes or less. It says that this supports guidelines from the College of American Pathologists (Northfield, Illinois) prescribing 20-minute turn-around-time for intraoperative frozen tissue sections.
Michael Sarrasin, chief operations officer of Celerus, said, “It's clear [this] technology will impact the pathology lab greatly with its speed and ease-of-use and, most importantly, improve cancer patient care. Rapid biopsy diagnostics is truly the next revolution in pathology.”
In other financing activity,Tm Bioscience (Toronto) reported completing a private placement of unsecured subordinated debt, together with common share purchase warrants, for proceeds of C$6.24 million.
The company said that the funds will be used to advance its pipeline of genetic tests and for general working capital.
The debentures carry an interest rate of 11% per year, with interest payable monthly in arrears and principal to be repaid in full at either 12 months from the closing date or within 30 days in the event of any cash infusion that results in proceeds to the company of $15 million. Should the company receive any cash infusion of less than $15 million or more it will repay a pro-rata portion of the debentures.
Investors will receive 250 warrants per $1,000 amount of the debentures purchased. Each warrant will be exercisable for one common share at a price of $1.15 for the period expiring five years from the closing date.
Tm Bioscience is developing tests for genetic disorders, drug metabolism and infectious diseases.