Financings In Brief

Xtent goes public: Custom NX drug-eluting stent developer Xtent nets approximately $67.8 million from a $75.2 million initial public offering of 4.7 million common stock shares at $16 each on Feb. 1. Proceeds are tabbed for ongoing clinical trials, R&D and commercial infrastructure, "including sales and marketing and manufacturing capacity expansion," the firm says in a same-day filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The Menlo Park, Calif., firm is developing 36 mm and 60 mm versions of its modular cobalt chromium coronary stent, which features 6 mm segments that allow physicians to customize the length and diameter of the device at the lesion site. The stent's coating incorporates Biosensors' anti-inflammatory drug Biolimus A9 via a licensing deal, and polylactic acid, a biodegradable polymer. "Our stent systems are designed to treat longer lesions than currently available drug-eluting stents and multiple lesions with the use of a single device," Xtent says. Eight-month Custom I trial data on 30 patients presented at the May 2006 Paris Course on Revascularization conference showed zero restenosis (1"The Gray Sheet" May 22, 2006, p. 14). The company, which has accumulated a deficit of over $46.9 million since its inception in June 2002, expects to launch its system in Europe in the second half of 2008 and in the United States in the first half of 2010. The firm's IPO shares represent about 21% of the company and trade under the Nasdaq symbol "XTNT." Underwriters include Piper Jaffray, Cowen & Co., Lazard Capital Markets and RBC Capital Markets...