A Medical Device Daily
SV Life Sciences (SVLS; London/Boston/San Francisco), formerly Schroder Ventures Life Sciences), reported final closing of SV Life Sciences Fund IV (SVLS IV) with total commitments of $572 million.
The fund was significantly oversubscribed, and SVLS said it decided to limit the final size. SVLS IV, SVLS's fourth international life sciences fund, brings the firm's total funds advised or managed to $1.6 billion, making it one of the largest venture capital investment groups dedicated to the life sciences sector, it said.
SLVS said the investment strategy of SVLS IV remains consistent with that of earlier funds. SVLS IV will be focused on providing start-up, early-stage and expansion capital to private life sciences companies in the U.S. and Europe, investing across a range of life sciences sectors, including biotechnology and pharmaceuticals, medical devices, healthcare services and healthcare information technology. Anticipated investment size will typically be between $5 and $25 million.
Of the total commitments, about 60% came from the U.S. and 40% from Europe and rest of world, SVLS said.
Oculus Innovative Sciences (Petaluma, California) reported that the underwriters of the company's recent initial public offering, which was priced in January (Medical Device Daily, Jan. 26, 2007), have exercised their over-allotment option it granted to purchase 328,550 additional shares of common stock at the offering price of $8 a share.
After giving effect to the exercise of the over-allotment option, the company sold a total of 3,353,550 shares in the offering. As a result, the company received additional gross proceeds of about $2.6 million, giving it total IPO gross proceeds of about $26.8 million. All of the shares were sold by the company.
In January, the offering, which was originally set for 3.1 million shares at $12 to $14 a share, was revised to 3.5 million shares at $8 to $10 a share (and priced at $8). The underwriters over-allotment was also lowered by 71,250 shares.
Roth Capital Partners acted as book-running manager for this offering, and Maxim Group and Brookstreet Securities acted as co-managers.
Oculus manufactures products intended to help prevent and treat infections in chronic and acute wounds.
It describes its platform technology, called Microcyn, as "a non-toxic, electrically charged, or super-oxidized, water-based solution that is designed to treat a wide range of organisms that cause disease, or pathogens, including viruses, fungi, spores and antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria, such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, and vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus, or VRE, in wounds."
The company says that it does not have regulatory approvals to market Microcyn in the U.S. as a drug but that in clinical testing and studies, its products "were effective against a wide range of pathogens and were found to be non-toxic, easy to use and complementary to most existing treatment methods in wound care."
In other financing activity:
• pSivida (Perth, Australia) reported the private placement, subject to shareholder approval, of 50 million ordinary shares issued at A$0.23 each to raise A$11.5million ($9 million) before costs to Australian, European and U.S. investors. Each share will be issued with two free attaching options at A$0.23 and a term of four years.
The capital raising was undertaken in replacement of the previously disclosed Nordic Biotech Fund interim financing. HPC Capital Management acted as the sole placement agent.
"This capital raising allows the company to focus on the recently announced exclusive licensing negotiations with a global pharmaceutical company and continue its primary focus on near- and medium-term opportunities, particularly in the area of controlled slow release drug delivery technologies," said Dr. Paul Ashton, managing director of pSivida.
• US Oncology Holdings (Houston) reported that it intends to offer $400 million of senior unsecured floating rate PIK toggle notes in an offering to institutional investors.
The new floating rate notes will be general unsecured obligations of the company, bearing interest at a floating rate that will be reset semi-annually based upon LIBOR plus an additional percentage.
Subject to certain limitations, the new floating rate notes will offer the company the option of making periodic interest payments or adding accrued interest to the principal balance of the new floating rate notes.
The net proceeds of the issuance of the new floating rate notes will be used to refinance the company's existing senior floating rate notes, including payment of a redemption premium on those notes, to pay a dividend to the company's stockholders, and to pay related fees and expenses.
The company anticipates issuing the notes in March.
US Oncology is one of the nation's largest cancer treatment and research networks.
• Cord Blood America (CBA, Los Angeles), the umbilical cord blood stem cell preservation company, has secured $2 million in capital, allowing it to complete the acquisition of CorCell (Philadelphia), the fourth largest private umbilical cord blood bank in America.
CBA purchased the operating entity and assets of CorCell in October (MDD, Oct. 18, 2006), and it said it will soon complete the purchase of the roughly 12,000 customers of CorCell.
The company said the debt will be serviced primarily with cash flow from CorCell operations.
• HealthSouth (Birmingham) said that it is seeking certain amendments to its existing senior secured credit facilities that include reducing the margin over LIBOR that the company pays as interest under the existing Term Loan B. The outstanding balance on the Term Loan B is about $2.04 billion.
"The amendment is seeking the appropriate approvals for our divestiture activities and we are pleased to take this step in our previously announced strategic repositioning efforts," said John Workman, HealthSouth's CFO.
HealthSouth is a major provider of inpatient ehabilitative services, outpatient rehabilitation centers, surgery centers, and diagnostic imaging centers.