A Medical Device Daily

Novasys Medical (Palo Alto, California), developer of therapies in the women's health sector, has received $8 million in debt financing from Hercules Technology Growth Partners (Palo Alto, California), a specialty finance company.

Novasys recently launched its first FDA-cleared product, the Renessa system, a non-surgical treatment for female stress urinary incontinence (SUI), a non-incisional approach that can be performed in a physician's office or other outpatient setting.

The Renessa procedure uses radio frequency energy (RF) to generate controlled heat at low temperatures in tissue targets within the lower urinary tract. The heat denatures collagen in the tissue at multiple small treatment sites, according to Novasys.

Kathy Conte, managing director of life sciences at Hercules, said, “In partnering with Novasys around women's health technology, we have reaffirmed our commitment to the growth prospects in this industry. This investment is a natural fit into our portfolio of women's health investments.”

Debra Reisenthel, president/CEO of Novasys, said the financing would support expansion of its commercialization efforts.

Hercules investments are originated through its principal office in Silicon Valley, as well as additional offices in the Boston, Boulder and Chicago areas.

Bioptigen (Durham, North Carolina), a company developing optical coherence tomography (OCT) systems, re-ported closing of a Series A round of funding of $1.3 million.

Investors included the Piedmont Angel Network (PAN), the Inception Micro-Angel Fund and “qualified” individuals. Bioptigen will be the first investment in the Piedmont Angel Network's PAN Two Fund.

Eric Buckland, president/CEO of Bioptigen, said, “Over the past year, funded largely by Phase I SBIR grants, we developed our first generation products and delivered beta units to our lead customers . . . We will leverage this investment to accelerate commercialization of the highest performance imaging systems with the flexibility and functionality desired by the biomedical research community.”

PAN invests primarily in life science and technology companies, and will work to assist Bioptigen in advancing its state-of-the-art real-time medical imaging technology. Tom Sloan, PAN Two member, has been placed on the Bioptigen board.

According to Troy Knauss, interim fund executive at PAN, “In terms of their technology and commercial appeal, [Bioptigen] aligned with the needs of our portfolio.”

PAN is a member-managed fund designed to capitalize on growth in entrepreneurial activity primarily in the Piedmont area of North Carolina and secondarily in other regions of North Carolina.

Bioptigen is a spin-out from the Biomedical Engineering Department in the Pratt School of Engineering at Duke University (Durham, North Carolina). Its target markets include pre-clinical research and development, animal imaging, and early-stage clinical research.

In other financing activity:

• Millipore (Billerica, Massachusetts), a provider of products and services for the laboratory industry and for biopharmaceutical manufacturing, said it has filed with the SEC an “automatic” shelf registration for the resale of up to $565 million of its 3.75% convertible senior notes, due 2026, and shares of Millipore's common stock issuable upon conversion of the notes.

Millipore's Bioprocess Division helps to enable pharmaceutical and biotech companies to optimize their manufacturing productivity, ensure drug quality, and scale up production of difficult-to-manufacture biologics. Its Bioscience division helps to optimize laboratory productivity and workflows by providing reagents, kits and other enabling technologies and products.

• Haemonetics (Braintree, Massachusetts) reported that its board has authorized the repurchase of up to $40 million of company common stock.

Ronald Matricaria, chairman of Haemonetics, said, “With our strong cash balance and anticipated future cash flows, we can continue to create shareholder value by both investing in the business as well as returning cash to our shareholders.”

Haemonetics manufactures automated blood processing systems for surgical blood salvage, blood component collection and plasma collection.

• Sontra Medical (Franklin, Massachusetts) reported completing a 1-for-10 reverse stock split of the company's issued and outstanding common stock. The reverse split was effective with respect to shareholders of record at 5 p.m. EST, Aug. 10.

As a result of the reverse stock split, the total number of shares was reduced from about 27,207,995 shares to about 2,720,799 shares. No fractional shares were issued in connection with the reverse split. The board of Sontra said it approved the reverse split to help the company regain compliance with the Nasdaq's $1 minimum bid price continued listing requirement. Shareholders who are entitled to fractional shares will receive cash in lieu of fractional shares. The exercise or conversion price, as well as the number of shares of common stock that can be issued upon exercise or conversion of the company's outstanding stock options, warrants and shares of Series A preferred stock, will be adjusted to reflect the reverse split.

The number of shares reserved for issuance under the company's equity compensation plans will also be reduced proportionately.

At the opening of the Nasdaq on Friday, the company's stock began trading at the split-adjusted level. For a period of 20-trading days, its common stock will trade on a post-split basis under the trading symbol SONTD. After the 20-trading day period, the stock will resume trading under the symbol SONT.

Sontra is a developer of transdermal systems and also is developing a non-invasive, continuous transdermal glucose monitor for use in the intensive care market.