A Medical Device Daily

Stereotaxis (St. Louis) reported the closing of its previously disclosed offering (Medical Device Daily, Jan. 30, 2006) of 5 million newly issued shares of its common stock, as well as the exercise in full and closing of the underwriters over-allotment option to purchase an additional 500,000 shares of common stock.

The net proceeds of the offering, after giving effect to the issuance and sale of all 5,500,000 shares of common stock at a price to the public of $12 a share, were about $61.7 million after deducting commissions and offering expenses.

Stereotaxis makes an advanced cardiology instrument control system for use in a hospital s interventional surgical suite that is designed to enhance the treatment of coronary artery disease and arrhythmias.

The Stereotaxis System is designed to allow physicians to navigate catheters and guidewires through the blood vessels and chambers of the heart to treatment sites. This is achieved using computer-controlled, externally applied magnetic fields that govern the motion of the working tip of the catheter or guidewire.

Patrick McCann, PhD, founder and president of Ekips Technologies (Norman, Oklahoma), reported that the company has closed a $2.4 million round of equity financing and received a $500,000 matching grant from the National Science Foundation through its Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) Phase IIB program.

Together, the company said these funds will be used for product development, marketing efforts, and general business operations.

Ekips has developed the Breathmeter, which measures biomarker molecules in exhaled breath. Breathmeter applications include asthma therapy monitoring, kidney function monitoring and cancer detection.

In other financing activity, NuVasive (San Diego), which is developing products for minimally disruptive surgical treatments for the spine, reported the public offering of 7.5 million shares of its common stock, of which 6,704,120 shares are newly issued shares being offered by NuVasive and 795,880 shares are secondary shares offered by selling stockholders.

The shares will be sold to the public at a price of $19.25 a share. The offering is expected to close on Feb. 7.

The underwriters have a 30-day option to purchase up to 1,125,000 additional shares of common stock from NuVasive.

Banc of America Securities and Lehman Brothers are joint book-running managers for the offering, and Thomas Weisel Partners and William Blair & Co. are co-managers.

The company s current principal product offering includes a minimally disruptive surgical platform called Maximum Access Surgery as well as classic fusion implants.