A Medical Device Daily

Two companies focused on therapy for a damaged heart — CoreValve (Irvine, California) and Abiomed (Danvers, Massachusetts) — yesterday reported raising in separate transactions a total of nearly $100 million.

CoreValve, a developer of technologies for percutaneous heart valve replacement, reported that it received $33 million in funding in its C round of financing.

Maverick Capital led the round and was joined by existing investors Apax Partners, HealthCap, and Sofinnova Partners.

This is the first financing that the company has sought since July 2005, when the company closed on a Series B round of financing of $24 million led by Apax Partners (Medical Device Daily, July 12, 2005). Prior to that, CoreValve, raised $6 million from angel investors and Sofinnova Partners.

"We have made significant progress in the development of our core technologies as well as in our clinical programs," said Jacques S guin, MD, PhD, CEO and founder of CoreValve. "This additional capital enables us to continue the execution of our strategy of leadership in less invasive heart valve delivery systems and the expansion of worldwide clinical trials."

In an interview in November 2005 with Medical Device Daily, Seguin said his company was "strongly considering" bypassing a C round in favor of an initial public offering (MDD, Nov. 22, 2005). Apparently the company concluded that the IPO market was not the best exit strategy at this time.

Founded in 2001, privately-held CoreValve has developed a delivery system and tissue heart valve for percutaneous heart valve replacement. Based on a catheter-and-self-expanding-frame approach on a beating heart, the CoreValve ReValving system procedure is intended to avoid open-heart surgery. It can be performed in a cardiac cath lab just like angioplasty and stenting, which may result in less trauma to the patient and may offer substantial cost-savings to the healthcare system.

Abiomed reported the completion of its previously disclosed 5 million-share public offering at $13.75 a share (MDD, March 26, 2007).

The net proceeds to Abiomed from the offering are about $63.6 million, after deducting underwriting discounts and commissions and estimated offering expenses.

The underwriters have been granted a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 750,000 shares of Abiomed's common stock to cover any over-allotments.

The offering was managed by Morgan Stanley & Co. and UBS Securities as joint book-running managers.

Abiomed is a developer of products designed to assist or replace the pumping function of the failing heart. It manufactures the AB5000 Circulatory Support System and the BVS 5000 Biventricular Support System for the temporary support of all patients with failing but potentially recoverable hearts and is developer of the AbioCor Implantable Replacement Heart.

In other financing news:

• Predictive medicine company PreMD (Toronto) reported completing its previously disclosed private placement for gross proceeds of $3,879,965 (MDD, March 22, 2007).

PreMD issued 2,917,268 units at a price of C$1.33 ($1.14) per unit, each unit consisting of one common share and one-half of one common share purchase warrant. Each whole warrant is exercisable at a price of C$1.66 per share for a period of three years from the closing date.

The company said the proceeds will be used for general corporate purposes.

PreMD is a developer of rapid, non-invasive tests for the early detection of life-threatening diseases. Its cardiovascular products are branded as the PREVU(x) Skin Cholesterol Test. The company's cancer tests include ColorectAlert, LungAlert and a breast cancer test.

• Advanced Medical Optics (AMO; Santa Ana, California) reported the pricing of a private offering of $250 million aggregate principal amount of its 7.5% senior subordinated notes due 2017.

The notes sale is conditioned upon and will be consummated with closing of the company's merger with IntraLase (Irvine, California), which it agreed to acquire in January for $808 million in cash, or $25 a share (MDD, Jan. 9, 2007).

AMO said it expects to use the proceeds from the offering, and borrowings under a new senior credit facility, to purchase the outstanding common stock of IntraLase; to repay outstanding indebtedness under its senior credit facility; and other general corporate purposes.

• Omega Healthcare Investors (Timonium, Maryland) said it will offer 6.2 million shares of its common stock from its registration statement on Form S-11.

The company said it will grant the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase another 930,000 shares of common stock to cover over-allotments.

UBS Investment Bank is acting as sole book-running manager for the offering. Banc of America Securities, Deutsche Bank Securities and Stifel Nicolaus are acting as co-managers for the offering.

Omega is a real estate investment trust providing financing to the long-term care industry.