VentureBeat

TODAY’S HEADLINES:

• Arbor Surgical raises $20M for heart devices (release)
• Small Bone Innovations acquires ankle-replacement maker Link America (release)
• Active Implants adds $3M for hip and knee implants (VentureWire)
• Clarian Health Partners launches VC unit with $25M (release)
• Iroko Pharma acquires non-U.S. rights to Merck heart drug (release)
• Remmele Engineering acquires medical-device manufacturer EL-Tronic Precision (release)
• OpGen appoints former Affymetrix exec Noel Doheny as CEO (release)

Arbor Surgical raises $20M for heart devices – Arbor Surgical, an Irvine, Calif., medical-device maker, raised $20 million in a third funding round. Medtronic, the huge medical-device maker led the funding, which was linked to a licensing deal between the two companies. Existing Arbor investors also participated.

Arbor is developing technology for minimally invasive heart-valve replacement. The company began European trials of its device in 2005, and expects to start U.S. tests this year.

Active Implants adds $3M for hip and knee implants – Active Implants, a Memphis, Tenn., medical-device company, added $3 million in convertible notes and warrants in preparation for its first product launch, VentureWire reports. The company declined to identify its investors.

The company just released its first product, a hip-replacement implant, in Europe, and is readying clinical trials for an artificial knee-cartilage replacement. All told, the company raised slightly more than $10 million last year, and says it will be looking for an additional $20 million in a third round later this year.

Clarian Health Partners launches VC unit with $25M – Clarian Health Partners, an Indianapolis hospital chain, launched a venture-capital arm, Clarian Health Ventures, with an initial $25 million investment. The release is here.

Clarian aims to make early-stage investments that will benefit its parent company and to support economic development and innovation in Indiana. The fund expects to make initial investments in the range of $250,000 to $500,000, and as much as $3 million over the life of an investment. Clarian’s first investment was in the cancer-biomarker biotech CS-Keys, which we covered yesterday.

Small Bone Innovations acquires ankle-replacement maker Link America –Small Bone Innovations, a New York maker of orthopedic implants for the hand, elbow, foot and elbow, acquired Link America, a device company focused on ankle replacement. The release is here. The companies didn’t disclose financial terms of the deal.

Medical Carbon Research Institute, a Austin, Tex., developer of mechanical heart valves, raised $32 million in debt, revenue interest and royalty conversion in a recapitalization that the company said eliminated most of its debt. MCRI also renamed itself after its leading product candidate, and will now be known as On-X Life Technologies.

Among those contributing to the recapitalization were Paul Capital Healthcare, PTV Sciences and several existing investors.

On-X makes and sells a pure-carbon heart-valve replacement called the On-X Prosthetic Heart Valve, which it claims offers greater toughness and flexible strength than silicon-alloyed carbon used in other heart-valve replacements. The On-X valves won European approval in 2000 and received a U.S. nod in 2002, the company told VentureWire (subscription required).

As a result, the company has been generating reveue for years, and would be cash-flow positive now but for the need to service an undisclosed amount of debt, CEO Clyde Baker told VentureWire. In addition to reducing debt, the cash infusion will allow the company to proceed with a clinical trial designed to show that patients with the On-X valve can reduce or eliminate anti-coagulent treatment required with other mechanical valve replacements.