A Medical Device Daily

Biovail (Toronto) reported that it has amended and renewed its revolving term credit facility with its banking syndicate. The amended $250 million credit facility now includes an accordion feature, which allows the facility to be increased to a total of $400 million at the company's discretion.

The agreement has been further restructured from the current renewable one-year term, with a one-year term-out option, and is now a three-year revolving term with an annual extension option. Pricing under the facility and certain covenants also has been revised to reflect Biovail's strong balance sheet and financial metrics.

“In 2005, Biovail executed against and met a number of financial objectives, including the maximization of cash flow,” said Dr. Douglas Squires, CEO. “Since January 2004, Biovail has reduced its debt by $400 million, and currently has over $500 million in cash on hand, which is in excess of its total remaining debt outstanding. Additionally, the changes that we have made to the revolving term credit facility provide the company with greater flexibility and certainty to manage our capital structure as we evaluate investment and other opportunities to grow Biovail's business.”

The administrative agent for the credit facility is the Bank of Nova Scotia. Other banks in the syndicate are Bank of Montreal, Credit Suisse, UBS AG, Royal Bank of Canada, HSBC Bank Canada and JPMorgan Chase Bank.

Total credit currently available under the Revolving Term Credit Facility – after deducting an outstanding letter of credit and excluding the accordion feature – is $232.4 million.

Biovail is a specialty pharmaceutical company developing pharmaceutical products utilizing advanced drug-delivery technologies.

SpectraScience (San Diego) reported that it has completed a private placement of $500,000 in new equity financing. The interim financing involved the sale of about 750,000 restricted common shares in compliance with Regulation D under the Securities Act of 1933. The lead investor is Perkins Capital Management of Minnesota.

“This incremental funding will enable the company to maintain the momentum of a clinical trial to detect pre-cancer in the esophagus,” said CEO Jim Hitchin.

“Our multi-patented and proprietary WavStat Optical Biopsysystem will be used by physicians to diagnose tissue and determine if it is normal, pre-cancerous or cancerous within one second,” he added.

The WavStat system is currently approved by the FDA for use in detecting cancer in the colon. A new application for detecting pre-cancers in the throat, sometimes called Barrett's esophagus, is being tested in a clinical trial.

The company noted that cancer of the esophagus is more than 90% fatal and may develop as a result of chronic heartburn or GERD. Esophageal cancer is growing five times faster than all other cancers.

In other financing news, VantageMed (Rancho Cordova, California) has completed a $500,000 private placement consisting of 1,111,112 shares of common stock priced at 45 cents a share.

Vision Opportunity Master Fund and Strategic Turnaround Equity Partners were the lead investors and members of VantageMed's management participated as well.

Investors in the transaction will also receive warrants to purchase an additional 1,111,112 shares of common stock priced at 55 centsa share, and an additional 555,556 shares priced at 90 cents a share.

“This transaction supports our goal of achieving positive cash flow and profitability while sustaining the delivery of quality service to our practice management, computerized medical record, and electronic transaction customers,” said CEO Steve Curd. “We plan to use these funds for working capital purposes and for consideration of broader strategic opportunities that we believe will provide value to our stockholders.”

VantageMed is a provider of healthcare software products and services to more than 18,000 physician and behavioral health providers nationwide. These providers use VantageMed's core products, including ChartKeeper computerized medical records software as well as RidgeMark, Northern Health Anesthesia and Therapist Helper practice management products, all of which are supported by SecureConnect electronic transaction services.