A Diagnostics & Imaging Week

Electro-Optical Sciences (EOS; Irvington, New York), said on Friday that it has priced its initial public offering of 4 million shares at $5 a share. All shares are being offered by the company, with the shares to begin trading on the Nasdaq under the symbol MELA.

The company said that the net proceeds will be about $16.5 million and would be used to fund R&D activities, including upcoming clinical studies and other general corporate purposes. Closing of the offering is expected to occur tomorrow.

The offering proposal was first rolled out in June and was targeted to raise gross proceeds of up to $33 million, later reduced to $29 million.

The company has reported receiving approval of a protocol agreement with the FDA for a pivotal trial of its non-invasive, point-of-care instrument, named MelaFind. MelaFind targets use in the early diagnosis of melanoma.

MelaFind features a hand-held imaging device that emits multiple wavelengths of light to capture images of suspicious pigmented skin lesions and extract data. The data are then analyzed against EOS’s proprietary database of melanomas and benign lesions using sophisticated algorithms in order to provide information to the physician and produce a recommendation of whether the lesion should be biopsied.

ForteBio (Menlo Park, California), a life sciences company providing tools for the detection and analysis of biomolecules and their interactions, reported the close of a $17.3 million Series B preferred stock financing.

The round was led by The Vertical Group. All of the company’s existing investors – Agilent Ventures, Alloy Ventures, Latterell Venture Partners and Versant Ventures – participated in this financing, ForteBio said.

“We are enthusiastic about the prospects for ForteBio’s impressive platform technology and instruments, and their opportunity to achieve near-term revenues,” said Yue-Teh Jang, PhD, general partner of The Vertical Group. “Furthermore, the company’s first product, Octet, has unique capabilities that will allow expansion into a number of different life-science applications.”

Jang, along with Brian Atwood of Versant Ventures, will join the ForteBio board.

ForteBio is preparing for a 4Q05 launch of its first product platform, Octet. An integrated system for the quantitation and kinetic analysis of biomolecules, Octet initially will be positioned to accelerate the selection and characterization of therapeutic antibodies and proteins.

In other financing news:

• Applied Biosystems Group (Foster City, California), a business of Applera (Norwalk, Connecticut), reported making an unspecified equity investment in VisiGen Biotechnologies (Houston), a sequencing technology company, along with entering into a scientific collaboration with VisiGen.

The investment and the collaboration are subject to VisiGen receiving an additional investment from SeqWright (Houston), an existing VisiGen shareholder, and other customary conditions. The companies expect that Applied Biosystems’ investment will be made and the collaboration begun by year-end.

VisiGen’s approach to DNA sequencing is based on the ability to analyze a single molecule of DNA in real-time, thereby improving throughput over existing technologies. The company recently was awarded a three-year, $4.2 million award by the National Human Genome Research Institute (Bethesda, Maryland) to accelerate its sequencing technology development and expand the use of genomics in biomedical research and healthcare.

Susan Hardin, PhD, president and CEO of VisiGen, said, “Applied Biosystems’ expertise in DNA sequencing makes it an ideal partner for us as we work toward commercialization, and this investment will accelerate the development of our sequencing technology.”

Applera consists of two operating groups. The Applied Biosystems Group and Celera Genomics.

• Gamma Medica-Ideas (GM-I; Northridge, California) reported completing a private placement of $7 million (NOK 45.6 million). About 1.2 million new shares were issued in the private placement.

Dr. Bradley Patt, president and CEO, said the proceeds would be used to support company growth. GM-I manufactures imaging systems for medicine, medical and biological research and for security and safety applications.

Svein Jacobsen, chairman of GM-I, said the financing included participation by some of the major institutional investors in Norway. DnB NOR Markets (Oslo), the country’s largest financial services group, managed the offering.

The company’s products include the LumaGEM functional breast imaging system for diagnosis of breast cancer and the FLEX pre-clinical imaging platform for medical research, drug development and drug discovery. Other products include the X-SPECT system for preclinical research; X-PET, a positive emission tomography system for preclinical work, and X-O, a micro-CT instrument. With FLEX, any two or three of these systems can be combined in a common gantry, as can all three.

The company develops and produces all of its key electrical components and systems, such as application-specific integrated circuits, detector modules, camera heads built with its solid-state technology, clinical and laboratory systems and software featuring advanced image fusion, registration and processing capabilities.

• The Molecular Profiling Institute (MPI; Phoenix) reported receiving $7.5 million in a Series B financing from three investors: AmeriPath (Riviera Beach, Florida), Affymetrix (Santa Clara, California) and Gen-Probe (San Diego). Molecular Profiling is a specialty reference laboratory using genomic analysis to guide treatment decisions for cancer patients.

The company said that the funding will be used to launch additional molecular tests in the areas of breast cancer, prostate cancer, and lymphoma and to develop additional assays through collaborations in clinical trials that indicate populations of patients who may best respond to targeted cancer therapies. MPI has an exclusive license to provide the MammaPrint 70-gene breast cancer prognostic in the U.S. and also provide tissue banking and analysis services for various pharmaceutical organizations.

MPI’s tests are provided principally through AmeriPath. MPI was founded as the conduit for the commercial application of the research projects of the Translational Genomics Research Institute and the tissue banking and analysis capabilities of the International Genomics Consortium.

• Rubicon Genomics (Ann Arbor, Michigan) reported forming a multi-year agreement with Abbott Molecular, a division of Abbott Laboratories (Abbott Park, Illinois), to commercialize its MethylPlex methylation detection technology for diagnosis and prognosis of cancer. The focus of the collaboration will be non-invasive detection of prostate and bladder cancer. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

The tests will employ proprietary Rubicon methylation markers in conjunction with a simplified method to detect those markers. MethylPlex is described as a method to detect the patterns of abnormal DNA methylation arising in serum and urine during tumor formation and progression.

Rubicon commercializes its OmniPlex-based tests for non-invasive diagnosis of cancer and other diseases, as well as kits to facilitate gene-based research and drug development.

• PerkinElmer (Wellesley, Massachusetts), a global health sciences and photonics company, said it has signed a $350 million unsecured revolving credit facility with a term of five years. The new facility replaces a $100 million facility.

The facility will be used for general corporate purposes which may include working capital, refinancing existing indebtedness, capital expenditures, share repurchases, acquisitions and strategic alliances.

Health sciences end markets for PerkinElmer include genetic screening, environmental, service, biopharma, and medical imaging. Photonics markets include sensors and specialty lighting.

• SpectRx (Norcross, Georgia) reported that it received $1.5 million from Respironics (Murrysville, Pennsylvania) for the remaining potential earn-out from the March 2003 sale of the BiliChek product line.

“We believe that this non-dilutive funding will provide us with the capital necessary to continue the launch of our new SimpleChoice twist insulin pump infusion set and increase sales of our existing products,” said Mark Samuels, chairman and CEO of SpectRx. “The funding should also help us move toward completing the separate funding of our non-invasive cervical cancer detection technology development.”

SpectRx sold the BiliChek product line to Respironics for $5 million in cash and $6.25 million in potential additional earn-outs, based on achievement of certain operating results.

In conjunction with the receipt of this payment of $1.5 million, Respironics also released SpectRx from any liability for repayment of an earlier advance of $1.3 million on potential earn-outs. In total, SpectRx said it has received about $9.5 million for the product line.

SpectRx developed the BiliChek as a replacement for a painful blood test for newborns suffering from infant jaundice. Elements of this technology, including several patents issued for the BiliChek, are being used to develop the non-invasive cervical cancer detection device, which currently is in pivotal clinical trials necessary for FDA regulatory approval. It is commercializing its non-invasive cancer detection technology through subsidiary company Guided Therapeutics, which SpectRx said it intends to separately finance with private funds.

SpectRx is a diabetes management company developing solutions for insulin delivery and glucose monitoring. The company markets the SimpleChoice line of diabetes management products, which include insulin pump disposable supplies. It also plans to develop a consumer device for continuous glucose monitoring.