Any remaining warrants relating to these financings have now expired. The company now has 42.1 million shares issued and outstanding with 47.2 million shares on a fully diluted basis.
“These proceeds strengthen our cash reserves and will allow us to further invest in our growing pipeline of innovative genetic tests,” said Jim Pelot, CFO of Tm Bioscience.
Tm Bioscience is a DNA-based diagnostics company developing a suite of genetic tests. Its product pipeline includes tests for genetic disorders, drug metabolism and infectious diseases.
Spire Biomedical (Bedford, Massachusetts) reported receiving the fourth payment, in the amount of $3 million, as part of its catheter patent license transaction with Bard Access Systems, a subsidiary of C. R. Bard (both Murray Hill, New Jersey). Spire sold an exclusive patent license for a hemodialysis split-tip catheter to Bard Access in exchange for up to $16 million and a sublicense (Medical Device Daily, Oct. 23, 2002).
Spire received an initial payment of $5 million upon execution of the agreement, a second $5 million payment in June 2003, based upon the first commercial sale of Bard’s catheter, and a third payment of $3 million, based upon the anniversary of the first commercial sale by Bard. The fourth $3 million payment relates to the second anniversary of the first commercial sale by Bard and represents the final payment required under the 2002 agreement.
Spire licensed an advanced, separated-tip catheter patent in 2000 from the inventor, Thierry Pourchez, MD, a noted French surgeon, and in 2002 received FDA approval to market a vascular access device in the U.S. Under its sublicense from Bard, Spire will continue to market the Pourchez XpressO, Pourchez RetrO, and the Decathlon, the only kink-resistant long-term hemodialysis catheters.
Mark Little, CEO of Spire, said, “In the past year, we launched two major product line extensions and secured a group purchasing organization contract with Premier. This has allowed our distributors to be highly competitive and increase Spire’s market share. We are very enthusiastic about the prospects for this product line as we continue to penetrate the market and develop new, innovative products.”
In other financing activity:
• Acacia Research (Newport Beach, Florida) reported that it has obtained commitments to purchase $2.9 million of its Acacia Research-CombiMatrix common stock in a registered direct offering. Acacia will sell 1,300,444 shares of its Acacia Research-CombiMatrix common stock at $2.25 per share to a select group of institutional investors.
The closing of the offering is expected to take place on July 5, subject to the satisfaction of customary closing conditions.
All of the shares of Acacia Research-CombiMatrix common stock are being offered by Acacia pursuant to an effective registration statement previously filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
“This financing further strengthens our balance sheet and provides additional capital to fund our entry into the molecular diagnostics market, which began with our recent formation of CombiMatrix Molecular Diagnostics,” said Amit Kumar, MD, president and CEO of CombiMatrix (Mukilteo, Washington). “The financing will also support our long-term strategy of adding new innovative products for the research and development markets with our CustomArray product line.”
The CombiMatrix group is developing a platform technology to rapidly produce customizable arrays, which are semiconductor-based tools for use in identifying and determining the roles of genes, gene mutations and proteins. Its technology has a wide range of potential applications in the areas of genomics, proteomics, biosensors, drug discovery, drug development, diagnostics, combinatorial chemistry, material sciences and nanotechnology.
Acacia Research-Acacia Technologies and Acacia Research-CombiMatrix are both classes of common stock issued by Acacia Research and are intended to reflect the performance of the respective operating groups and are not issued by the operating groups.
• Biomet (Warsaw, Indiana) said its board of directors declared a cash dividend of 25 cents per share, payable July 22, to shareholders of record at the close of business on July 15. The board also authorized the repurchase of 2.5 million shares of the company’s outstanding common shares to be automatically purchased daily in equal increments over the next twelve months, irrespective of market conditions.
This is in addition to the March authorization to repurchase up to an additional $100 million of the company’s outstanding common shares in open market or privately negotiated transactions, of which about $84 million is currently available (MDD, March 23, 2005).
Since December 2001, the company said it has repurchased about 26.4 million of its common shares, for an aggregate amount of $841.6 million.
Biomet and its subsidiaries make products used primarily by musculoskeletal medical specialists in both surgical and non-surgical therapy.
• Ventas (Louisville, Kentucky) said it has agreed to sell 3,247,000 million shares of its common stock to Merrill Lynch & Co., as sole underwriter in an underwritten public offering.
The company, which expects to receive net proceeds of about $97 million from the sale, said it intends to use the net proceeds to repay indebtedness under its revolving credit facility and for general corporate purposes, including funding acquisitions.
The common shares are being offered under the company’s existing shelf registration statement, which has been declared effective by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Ventas is a healthcare real estate investment trust that owns and invests in healthcare and senior housing assets in 41 states. Its properties include hospitals, skilled nursing facilities and assisted and independent living facilities.
• Ardent Health Services (Nashville, Tennessee) reported the extension of the expiration date for its previously disclosed cash tender offer and consent solicitation by its subsidiary, Ardent Health Services Inc., for its outstanding 10% senior subordinated notes due 2013 from 5 p.m., EST, on July 13 to midnight, EDT, on July 15.
The company has received tenders and consents from holders of $224.97 million in aggregate principal amount of the notes, representing about 99.99% of the outstanding notes.
The price determination date will be 2 p.m., EDT, 10 business days prior to the expiration date.
• Triad Hospitals (Plano, Texas) said it priced its common stock offering of 3,729,951 shares at $53.62 per share to yield gross proceeds of about $200 million and net proceeds of roughly $189 million.
The company also has granted to the underwriters an option for 30 days to purchase an additional 559,492 shares to cover any overallotments.
Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, Citigroup Global Markets and Banc of America Securities are joint book-running managers for the offering.
Triad, through its affiliates, owns and manages hospitals and ambulatory surgery centers in small cities and selected larger urban markets. The company operates 52 hospitals and nine ambulatory surgery centers in 15 states.