A Medical Device Daily

Renal Solutions (Warrendale, Pennsylvania), a provider of advanced sorbent hemodialysis products and services, reported the closing of a $16.5 million Series B financing round.

The round was led by new investors Triathlon Medical Ventures and PA Early Stage Partners, who were joined by several current investors, including Birchmere Ventures, Blue Chip Venture and Draper Triangle Ventures.

"This financing provides us with the capital necessary to introduce the Allient Sorbent Hemodialysis System to the acute and chronic dialysis markets and to conduct clinical trials for the home market once we receive FDA approval," said Peter DeComo, chairman and CEO of Renal Solutions. "We are very pleased with this vote of confidence from our anchor investors and delighted to welcome our new investors."

Renal Solutions, a medical device and healthcare service company, is developing technology/service solutions for the home and acute dialysis market.

Syneron Medical (Yokneam, Israel) reported that it priced an offering of 7 million of its ordinary shares being sold by selling shareholders (Medical Device Daily, March 9, 2005) at $28 per share.

The selling shareholders have granted the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 1,050,000 of their ordinary shares.

The offer is being made only by means of a prospectus. Lehman Brothers and CIBC World Markets are 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 are co-managers.

Syneron Medical manufactures medical aesthetic devices that are powered by its ELOS combined-energy technology of bipolar radio frequency and light. The technology provides for a broad range of medical-aesthetic applications including hair removal, wrinkle reduction, rejuvenating the skin's appearance through the treatment of superficial benign vascular and pigmented lesions, and the treatment of acne, leg veins and the appearance of cellulite.

In other financings activity:

• OmniCorder Technologies (East Setauket, New York) reported that it has signed a two-year agreement with Mark Fauci, the company's founder, board member and former president and CEO. Under the agreement, Fauci will continue as a board member and will provide consulting services to the company, among other things.

In another development, the board of directors unanimously agreed to extend the original stock lock-up agreement, entered into in September 2004 and set to expire on March 17, until Dec. 31.

Under this agreement, all board members, including Fauci, agreed to extend their commitment not to publicly sell any of their shares through year-end 2005 and will establish corporate policies to restrict the sale of stock by directors beyond that point.

The board has initiated a study to examine appropriate guidelines for those restrictions. Further, Fauci has agreed to be bound by the same restrictions as all other board members regarding the sale of director stock through the term of his consulting agreement whether or not he remains a member of the board of directors.

"The board's unanimous decision to extend the lock-up agreement restricting the sale of OmniCorder stock by the company's directors and our determination to establish corporate policies that limit sales of director stock underscores our long-term confidence and commitment to the company and its shareholders," said company Chairman Joseph Lisa.

The company's BioScanIR system is a functional medical imaging modality that provides a fast, non-invasive, radiation free method for detecting and managing a wide variety of diseases that affect blood perfusion – such as cancer and vascular disease – by detecting minute changes in temperature based on the pattern of infrared photon emissions over time.

OmniCorder has successfully used the BioScanIR system in a number of medical markets, including breast cancer detection, cancer therapy monitoring, drug discovery, neurosurgery and reconstructive surgery.

• GE Commercial Finance Healthcare Financial Services (Danbury, Connecticut) signed a vendor financing agreement with Getinge USA (Rochester, New York), a subsidiary of Sweden-based Getinge, one of the world's leading manufacturers of sterilization/disinfection equipment and surgical products.

Under the five-year agreement, GE Commercial Finance will offer its full range of equipment financing options to Getinge customers, which include operating and capital leases, loans and customized financing programs.

"The combination of GE's extensive healthcare solutions, technology, financial strength and marketplace knowledge reaffirmed that the company was the right partner to take Getinge to new levels of performance and success," said Charles Carrier, president of Getinge USA. "Together, we will offer competitive and flexible financing solutions that help us to deliver the financing requirements of our customers."