A Diagnostics & Imaging Week

Ikonisys (New Haven, Connecticut), which is focused on the development of products for prenatal and cancer diagnosis and screening and fertility, reported the closing of a $10 million Series D private equity financing.

The round was led by Trevi Health Ventures, with a syndicate of existing and other new investors, including St. Simeon Lda, New Science Ventures, WHI Group and Lakeview Capital Management.

With this financing, Ikonisys said it expects to "rapidly advance" its prenatal diagnostics program to FDA submission and further develop its oncology program.

"This financing will facilitate the completion of the clinical development of the fetal cell detection test, a test that could significantly impact the health care of its intended users and help position Ikonisys in the center of an exciting segment of the diagnostic market," said Petros Tsipouras, chairman and CEO.

The company has developed the Ikoniscope, a robotic microscopy system for fully automated and high-throughput rare cell detection and analysis. The fetal cell test will provide non-invasive prenatal diagnosis for chromosomal abnormalities by analyzing a small sample of maternal blood to detect circulating fetal cells. The company also is developing several oncology products based on the utilization of its robotic microscopy system.

Pacific Biometrics (Seattle) reported completing a $3.8 million private equity financing, through sale of about 2.8 million restricted shares of common stock together with warrants to purchase about 800,000 shares of stock at $1.35 a share. The warrants have a price of $1.60 a share, exercisable beginning on the date that is six months from the closing date. If all of warrants are exercised in full, PBI would receive additional funding of about $1.4 million.

PBI provides central laboratory and contract research services for diagnostics and pharma manufacturers conducting clinical trials. And it also has several patented technologies, including monitoring devices for glucose and changes in bone turnover, an advanced, isothermal DNA amplification technology, and a viability technology to distinguish live from dead cells in a range of diagnostic applications.

In other financing activity:

• Elbit Medical Imaging (EMI; Tel Aviv, Israel) said it has agreed with Israeli investors to issue about NIS 102 million of unsecured non-convertible Series A debentures and about NIS 2 million of unsecured non-convertible Series B debentures.

Such debentures would be in addition to the NIS 298 million in principal amount of Series A Debentures and NIS 57 million in principal amount of Series B debentures, issued to Israeli investors in Israel on Feb. 23. Issuance of the new debentures was to have been completed yesterday.

The principal terms of the A and B debentures were announced by EMI on Feb. 21. They will be listed for trade on the Institutional Retzef, a trading system for institutional investors in Israel. The debentures may not be offered or sold in the U.S. absent registration or an application exemption from the registration requirements.

EMI is a subsidiary of Europe Israel. One of its three subsidiaries is InSightec, doing R&D work in image-guided focused ultrasound.

• HealthSouth (Birmingham, Alabama) has entered into a credit agreement providing up to $2.55 billion in senior secured financing with a group of financial institutions and an interim loan agreement that provides $1 billion of senior unsecured interim loans. HealthSouth used a portion of the proceeds of the loans under the senior credit facility, the proceeds of the interim loans and the proceeds of $400 million from its previously announced issuance and sale of 400,000 shares of 6.50% Series A preferred stock, completed on March 7, along with cash on hand, to prepay its existing indebtedness and to pay fees and expenses related to the recapitalization transactions.

The remainder of the proceeds and availability under the senior credit facilities will be used for general corporate purposes. HealthSouth anticipates refinancing the $1 billion interim loans in 2Q or3Q 2006 by issuing debt securities.

HealthSouth is a major provider of outpatient surgery, diagnostic imaging and rehabilitative healthcare services.