Featured companies: Concentric Medical, Vertebration, Vision RT, Kemeta
Clotbuster Concentric Medical files for $69M IPO -- Mountain View, Calif.-based Concentric Medical, which makes and markets devices for removing dangerous blood clots from the brains of stroke patients, filed to raise up to $69 million in an initial offering. The company's devices consist of catheters that are threaded into the body's circulatory system via the femoral artery in the groin and passed into the brain to the site of the clot. There, a wire at the end of the catheter coils around the clot, permitting its removal.
Although Concentric's device has been approved since 2004, the company is still losing money despite briskly expanding sales. The company posted a $6.9 million net loss in 2006, down from $9.7 million in 2004. Sales rose to $11.3 million from $2.3 million over the same period.
Concentric's clot-removal device is based on technology licensed from the University of California. Among the risk factors noted by the company is the fact that the device can malfunction and sometimes causes additional injury to the delicate blood vessels of the brain. Concentric said it has submitted 82 medical-device reports to the FDA as of June 30; in 56 of those events, the device's tip fractured, and in 22 instances a blood vessel was damaged.
Spinal implant maker Vertebration raises $750K -- Vertebration, a Columbus, Ohio, developer of spinal implants, raised a $750,000 seed round, VentureWire reports (subscription required). The funding consisted of $500,000 in venture debt arranged by NCT Ventures and a $250,000 private placement to angel investors.
The company may seek a first funding round of $3.5 million to $10 million later this year, according to VentureWire. Its Web site should be active next week.
From the VentureWire piece:
Columbus, Ohio-based Vertebration plans to take its first product, a spinal implant called Xycor, to market in late October. The implant works to restore the height and space between two vertebrae or a partial vertebra through a minimally invasive procedure. Xycor received 510(k) clearance from the Food and Drug Administration earlier this year. Vertebration is developing instruments to accompany its lead product, as well as other products for the spine market.
Vision RT gets $500K for radiation imaging -- Vision RT, a London-based developer of three-dimensional imaging tools for guiding radiation therapy, raised $495,725 (£250,000) from the Capital Fund, VentureWire reports. The company's tools provide a three-dimensional model of a patient in order to properly direct radiation-beam treatment for cancer and other diseases.
Kemeta takes equity investment from Dow Chemical for breath analysis -- Kemeta, a Phoenix developer of breath-analysis systems, said Dow Chemical took a minority equity stake in the company. Details of the transaction weren't disclosed.
Kemeta aims to produce a palm-sized analyzer that can measure breath acetone, a by-product of burning fat, for use in obesity. The sensor technology was originally developed by Dow.