A Diagnostics & Imaging Week
Xillix Technologies (Richmond, British Columbia), a developer of fluorescence endoscopy, reported closing a $5.5 million debt financing provided by Hercules Technology Growth Capital (Palo Alto, California).
Xillix said that the proceeds would be used for working capital and general corporate purposes.
Cynthia Roney, president and CEO of Xillix, said Hercules “is well suited as a Xillix investor considering its high growth, life sciences mandate and U.S. medical device expertise, combined with Xillix’s 2005 FDA approval for the lung cancer indication of Onco-LIFE and the company’s plans for the colon cancer submission to the FDA in 2006.”
She said the investment “ensures that the company will remain focused on aggressively moving forward with our business plans without distraction.”
The loan, repayable in 30 equal monthly installments beginning six months after closing, is secured by a security interest in all the assets of Xillix.
Xillix has issued 2,621,688 warrants to Hercules, representing no more than 1.8% dilution, each warrant entitling the holder to purchase one common share of Xillix for 25 cents share, exercisable for a period of five years. In addition, Xillix granted Hercules the right to invest up to $1.5 million in its next common share financing.
Xillix’s Onco-LIFE system incorporates fluorescence and white-light endoscopy in a single device developed to detect and localize lung and gastrointestinal (GI) cancers. The company cites an international lung cancer clinical trial that demonstrated a 325% per-lesion improvement in detecting early lung cancer with Onco-LIFE and a 250% per-patient improvement compared to white-light alone.
Onco-LIFE is approved for sale in the U.S. for the lung application and in Europe and Canada for both lung and GI applications.
Competitive Technologies (CTT; Fairfield, Connecticut) said that it has granted a license for a homocysteine assay to Genzyme Diagnostics (Cambridge) under its U.S. patent No. 4,940,658. The license includes an initial license fee and payments, releasing customers of Equal Diagnostics, a Genzyme business, of any obligation to pay royalties to CTT for homocysteine test results obtained using Genzyme’s Equal Diagnostics assays in the past. The license also includes royalties on future product sales.
Aris Despo, CTT’s senior vice president-life sciences, noted that the agreement could lead to future collaborations with Genzyme.
“This license demonstrates our commitment to our customers and their needs,” said Donald Pogorzelski, president of Genzyme Diagnostics, “and permits Genzyme Equal customers to continue performing homocysteine assays under Genzyme’s license with CTT.”
Genzyme’s products and services are focused on rare inherited disorders, kidney disease, orthopedics, cancer, transplant and immune diseases, and diagnostic testing.
CTT develops technologies in life and physical sciences, electronics, and nanotechnologies developed by universities, companies and inventors.
Ophthalmic Imaging Systems (OIS; Sacramento, California) reported that MediVision Medical Imaging (Yokneam, Israel), its major shareholder, sold 310,000 shares of OIS common stock to the clients of an institutional investor at $1.45 a share, increasing a public float to about 5.1 million shares.
Gil Allon, CEO of OIS, termed the sale “one more example of OIS management and MediVision’s commitment to introducing new institutional investors to the OIS story and increasing the company’s liquidity.” OIS manufactures digital imaging systems and informatics solutions for the eye care market.