A Medical Device Daily

St. Jude Medical (St. Paul, Minnesota) said that its board has authorized a share repurchase of up to $300 million of its outstanding common stock. The repurchases will occur at such times and at such prices as the management of the company determines and may be effected through transactions in the open market, in privately negotiated transactions or otherwise.

The company also said its board declared a fourth quarter dividend of 21 cents per common share. This dividend amount is equal to the dividend paid in connection with the first, second and third quarters of 2011 and brings the total dividend declared for the year to 84 cents per share. The dividend is payable Jan. 31, 2012 to shareholders of record on Dec. 30, 2011.

Any shares acquired in the $300 million program will be available for general corporate purposes. The company had about 320 million shares of common stock outstanding as of Dec. 12.

In other financings activity:

• Sotera Wireless (San Diego) reported the completion of a $12.2 million Series D financing led by Singapore-based global fund, EDBI.

The round also included new investor Cerner Capital and existing investors Sanderling Ventures, Qualcomm Ventures, Intel Capital and West Health Investment Fund. The Company also announced it has executed a commercial agreement with Cerner, a leading health care technology company, which participated in the financing as Cerner Capital.

“I met the Sotera Wireless leadership team about a year ago and I was amazed by the truly revolutionary capabilities that they have built into their product, ViSi Mobile,“ said Paul Gorup, CIO and co-founder of Cerner. “We at Cerner believe in the power of innovation and decided to collaborate with Sotera Wireless to jointly make an impact on how vital signs for general care patients in hospitals are captured and documented.“

The ViSi Mobile System was designed to benefit patient safety by detecting early signs of deterioration through constant monitoring of all vital signs. Patient safety is among the chief concerns of hospital clinicians and administrators faced with balancing quality, decreasing budgets and staffing resources.

• Oxford Finance (Alexandria, Virginia), a specialty finance firm that provides senior debt to life sciences and healthcare services companies, reported that it established a $15 million revolving line of credit to one of the largest providers of hospital-based outpatient services in the U.S. The private equity-backed company plans to use the funds to refinance current debt and execute the company's growth plan.