Executives at HeartWare International Inc. (NSDQ:HTWR) signaled they are ready to pay off any post-holiday bills, disclosing plans to raise up to $100 million in new capital.
The Framingham, Mass.-based manufacturer of miniaturized heart pumps filed a shelf registration for up to $100 million in new securities. The preliminary prospectus does not commit the company to a specific timeframe or the exact mix of stock, debt or hybrid instruments to be sold. Instead, it merely allows HeartWare officials to sell securities as its corporate needs and market conditions dictate.
But some form of offering is likely, given HeartWare‘s operating history. The company has yet to post a profit since its 2004 launch and so far has run up a combined $96 million deficit in bringing its ventricular assist system to market. During the past five years, HeartWare has raised a combined $165.9 million from investors, including a $58.8 million stock sale completed Aug. 11.
It finished the quarter ended Sept. 30 with about $31 million in cash and equivalents, although that bankroll does not include another $30.7 million held in escrow from the August offering, which requires formal approvals by existing shareholders before reaching the HeartWare ledger. Net losses through the first nine months of 2009 were $19 million, on about $11.2 million in sales.
Clinical trials of HeartWare’s first-generation device are under way in the United States, Europe and Australia. The company received a conditional investigational device exemption (IDE) from U.S. regulators in 2008 and last month submitted an application for a full IDE with the Food & Drug Administration. Work also is continuing on HeartWare’s next-generation heart pump, which will be about one-third the size of the original pump.