A Medical Device Daily

Pacific Biometrics (PBI; Seattle), a provider of central laboratory services, reported completing a private placement for shares and warrants of common stock, closing on an additional $500,000 in early April 2006.

The closing was supplementary to a March 8, 2006, closing, which brought the company $3,800,065 in gross proceeds. Total gross proceeds from the private placement are now about $4.3 million.

In addition, in early April 2006, the holders of the outstanding shares company Series A preferred stock entered an agreement to voluntarily exchange all of their shares of Series A preferred stock for 1,791,907 shares of common stock. The effective date of the exchange is March 31. As a result of this transaction, the outstanding shares of Series A preferred stock will be cancelled, and the company common stock will be the only class of stock issued and outstanding.

Ron Helm, CEO, said: “These recent events are significant for two reasons. First, we achieved our financing goal for net proceeds, which ends our immediate focus on financing and which we believe gives us the necessary resources to move forward on our operations plan during 2006. Second, we completed a very important capital restructuring by converting the Series A preferred into common, which simplifies and cleans up our capital structure.“

PBI provides specialized central laboratory and contract research services to support pharmaceutical and diagnostic manufacturers in the areas of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, osteoporosis, arthritis and nutrition.

PBI says it also owns several patented and patent-pending technologies, including monitoring devices for glucose and changes in bone turnover, an isothermal DNA amplification technology, and a gene-based cell viability technology to distinguish live from dead cells in a broad range of diagnostic applications.

In other financing news:

Healthcare solutions provider Passport Health Communications (Franklin, Tennessee) reported completing a $70 million leveraged recapitalization.

Jim Lackey, CEO, said the capital provides funds to support “organic growth and selective acquisitions and allows our original investors and management to achieve some liquidity while retaining significant ownership.“

Passport connects its customers – more than 1,300 hospitals and more than 1,600 physician clinics and outpatient centers – with access to payer information to facilitate and improve their revenue cycle process.

Primus Venture Partners led the private equity investment, Allied Capital provided subordinated debt financing and Fifth Third Bank provided senior debt financing. William Mulligan and Phillip Molner from Primus will join Passport's board.

Brentwood Capital Advisors (Nashville, Tennessee) acted as exclusive financial advisor to Passport and arranged the private equity and subordinated and senior debt required to fund the transaction.