A Medical Device Daily

Aesthetic device manufacturer Syneron Medical (Yokneam, Israel/Toronto) continued to build its cash resources, reporting last week that the underwriters of its recent secondary offering have purchased another 937,809 shares for $28 a share, raising more than $26.5 million.

Earlier this month, the company raised gross proceeds of $196 million in a secondary offering with the sale of 7 million ordinary shares at $28 a share (Medical Device Daily, March 16, 2005).

The company last year raised $66 million via an initial public offering of 5.5 million shares (MDD, Aug. 10, 2004).

Lehman Brothers and CIBC World Markets acted as joint book-running managers of the offering, with Citigroup Global Markets serving as a joint lead manager. Stephens, Thomas Weisel Partners and C.E. Unterberg, Towbin acted as co-managers.

Syneron manufactures devices powered by its ELOS combined-energy technology of Bi-Polar Radio Frequency and Light. Syneron says that ELOS "is the foundation for systems enabling a broad range of medical-aesthetic applications" from hair removal to the treatment of superficial benign vascular and pigmented lesions.

In other financing news:

The University at Buffalo (UB; Buffalo, New York) said it has signed an accord with Sleep Solutions (SSI; Annapolis, Maryland) for SSI to market a diagnostic testing technology for obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) and Cheyne-Stokes Respiration (CSR). Financial terms of the agreement were not reported.

SSI provides technology and services for at-home diagnosis, therapy and care management of sleep-disordered breathing, particularly OSA, which affects 18 million people in the U.S., with as many as 90% going undiagnosed. In addition, CSR, a sleep-disordered breathing condition occurring in patients with congestive heart failure, affects an additional 4.6 million Americans.

"This technology represents a substantive advancement in the way OSA can be diagnosed," said Michael Thomas, president and CEO of SSI. "This new product will broaden our portfolio of services of less expensive, more patient-friendly diagnostic testing products delivered directly to OSA patients in their homes."

It described the UB technology as a software algorithm using a form of artificial intelligence, which it terms "a neural network," to detect OSA and CSR using pulse oximetry signaling.

Ali El-Solh, MD, associate professor of medicine, and Brydon Grant, MD, professor of medicine, in the UB School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, and Jacek Dmochowski, formerly with UB, developed the software programs and algorithms. The technology is based on analysis of the oximetric recordings of 213 sleep studies. The developers said the software has demonstrated high sensitivities and specificities for diagnosing CSR and OSA.

"SSI has contracted with many of the leading managed care organizations throughout the U.S. and developed strong brand awareness of innovation, cost-effectiveness and high-quality services with our core product, NovaSom QSG," noted Thomas.

Robert Genco interim vice president for research and director of the UB Office of Science, Technology Transfer and Economic Outreach, noted "a growing worldwide clinical need to provide a cost-effective solution" for diagnosing both OSA and CSR.

"We are very confident that Sleep Solutions will be able to bring this novel technology to the marketplace resulting in a lower-costing, easier-to-implement diagnostic tool for the public good."

UB has filed for patent protection on behalf of the Research Foundation of the State University of New York. The technology has been issued two patents with an additional patent application pending.

UB is a research-intensive public university, billing itself as "the largest and most comprehensive campus in the State University of New York."