The parent company of Rockland, Mass.-based Osmetech Inc. (LSE:OMH) said it sold $16.3 million in new stock with the proceeds, in part, slated to build out an U.S. sales force for the diagnostics company.

London-based Osmetech plc, which markets the eSensor XT-8 test system, issued nearly 480 million shares each priced at 2.05 pence, or about 3.4 cents. Slightly more than half of the new shares were sold directly by the company to investors outside the United Kingdom.

The deal still requires approval from existing shareholders; the company tentatively scheduled a Dec. 21 vote to ratify the private placement. Osmetech shares currently trade on the London Stock Exchange, although executives have said they are considering moving to another exchange such as the NASDAQ Capital Market in order to gain more visibility.

The new financing deal follows a $8.6 million stock sale in June. The company reports it had about $3 million in cash and equivalents on hand at the end of October, indicating a burn rate of nearly $1 million a month.

Regulators have cleared two of the company’s products for U.S. sales — a molecular-level test to identify patients at risk of complications from Warfarin, a popular blood-thinning drug, as well as a test to detect people who are carriers of cystic fibrosis. Sales through the first nine months of 2009 reached $692,000, up 74 percent from the $398,000 in year-ago sales.

In September, Osmetech scrapped a five-year distribution deal with the healthcare unit of Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., only six months after the companies inked the pact. Osmetech officials said they wanted to expand the company’s sales team in this country.