A Diagnostics & Imaging Week

Natus Medical (San Carlos, California) reported pricing an offering of 770,000 shares of its common stock at $18.27 a share, equal to the closing price of the company's common stock on the Nasdaq Global Market on April 3. The shares are being sold under the company's previously filed shelf registration, declared effective by the SEC on Aug. 15, 2006.

The company said net proceeds of the offering will be about $13.4 million. It said it will use the proceeds for general corporate purposes, including financing of potential acquisitions of, or investments in, companies and technologies, as well as for capital expenditures and working capital. It said it does not expect to use the proceeds to accelerate payments on its existing term debt.

The company also granted the underwriter a 30–day option to purchase up to another 115,500 shares to cover over–allotments. The offering was expected to close on or about April 9.

Roth Capital Partners acted as the sole underwriter of the offering.

Natus develops products used for the screening, detection, treatment, monitoring and tracking of medical ailments such as hearing impairment, neurological dysfunction, epilepsy, sleep disorders, and newborn care.

In other financings news:

• BioTrove (Woburn, Massachusetts) has filed a registration statement with the SEC for an initial public offering, with plans to use the proceeds to fund development of its OpenArray and RapidFire product lines. The share price has not been set.

The company plans to trade under the ticker symbol BTRV.

BioTrove's OpenArray Platform enables genomics researchers to generate hundreds of thousands of single nucleotide polymorphism and real–time quantitative polymerase chain reaction data points per day, with the goal of increasing the number of samples analyzed while decreasing time and costs.

The company describes its RapidFire high–throughput mass spectrometry (RFMS) hardware system as a "native" detection technology for cytochrome P450 inhibition assays and screening of chemical libraries against biochemical assays. Using microfluidic technology, RFMS facilitates label–free detection of multiple analytes in a range of applications. The fully automated platform permits analysis at six to eight seconds per sample.

BioTrove reported revenues of $4.7 million for 2007, with assets of $31.1 million. Cash and cash equivalents for the year topped out at $18.7 million. At year end, the company had net losses of $15.9 million.

Piper Jaffray & Co. and Lazard Capital Markets are acting as joint book–running managers and Robert W. Baird & Co. is acting as co–manager.

• Grant Life Sciences (Los Angeles) reported that it has received a waiver from The N.I.R. Group (Roslyn, New York), allowing it to pursue alternate financing to pay down, in whole or in part, an existing financing debt to NIR.

"These important developments related to NIR. Group will allow Grant to further advance its serum–based test for cervical cancer in the largest market in the world, China," said Hun–Chi Lin, PhD, Grant's president and chief scientist.

Grant develops kits for the screening, monitoring and diagnosis of diseases with emphasis on women's health, infectious diseases and cancers.

• Ophthalmic Imaging Systems (OIS; Sacramento, California) reported board authorization to repurchase up to 1 million shares of company common stock.

Gil Allon, CEO of OIS, said, "[S]everal exciting initiatives [are] underway which we believe will enhance our business and drive future growth. This includes the acquisition of a proprietary informatics platform and simultaneous launch of a new subsidiary, Abraxas Medical Solutions (Irvine, California). Through Abraxas, OIS will develop and market informatics solutions for physician clinics in a wider variety of specialties. Our long–term business performance and share repurchase program illustrate our commitment to increasing shareholder value."

The company the program reevaluated after the first $100,000 is invested. Any shares repurchased under the program will be returned to the state of authorized but unissued shares of common stock.

OIS is a subsidiary of MediVision (Houston), a provider of ophthalmic digital imaging systems.

• Biofield (King of Prussia, Pennsylvania), filed a preliminary information statement with the SEC on April 2, reporting authorization of the amendment of the company's articles of incorporation to affect a 1–for–10 reverse split of the company's common stock.

Biofield develops non–invasive diagnostic medical devices to assist in detecting breast cancer.

• Guardian Technologies International (Herndon, Virginia), a technology developer of intelligent imaging informatics solutions, for the homeland security and healthcare industries, has entered into definitive agreements with five existing and four new accredited investors with respect to the private placement of about 10 million shares of its common stock at a 70 cents a share for gross proceeds of about $7 million.

Guardian said it expects to use the proceeds to advance its international business development activities, healthcare research and development activities, and fund general corporate operations.

Guardian's software solutions can be seamlessly installed to compliment existing imaging devices, such as baggage scanners and medical MRI,.