VRSEF: Meaningful Progress on Several Fronts - Analyst Blog
28 Février 2013 - 4:24PM
Zacks
VRSEF: Meaningful Progress on Several
Fronts
By Brian Marckx, CFA
Verisante (OTC Markets:VRSEF)/(V.VRS)
continues to make meaningful progress on several fronts including
commercialization of Aura, continued product development,
regulatory matters, financing, and product and market awareness
initiatives. Below is a quick snapshot of some of these
activities over the last few months.
VRSEF Raising $4MM - $10MM
This morning (2/28/2013) Verisante announced that through two
separate (one U.S., one ex-U.S.) private placements of common stock
with warrants that they expect to raise between $4 million and $10
million. Verisante expects both transactions to close within
the next two months.
Each offering will consist of minimum of 4 million and maximum
of 10 million shares offered at $0.50/share with 100% warrant
coverage. Warrants are exercisable at $0.70 (currently out of
the money) with an initial term of 24 months. Verisante has
the right to call in the expiration dates of the warrants to within
~30 days of the following events; 50% of warrants' if
Verisante's volume weighted trading price reaches $1.00 or greater
for 10 consecutive days, 100% of warrants if Verisante's volume
weighted trading price reaches $1.25 or greater for 10 consecutive
days.
Verisante exited Q3 (9/30/2012) with $2.8 million in cash and
equivalents and has been burning (including capitalized R&D)
roughly $1.3 million per quarter. This cash raise will
provide significant operating capital and should help catalyze the
ongoing roll-out of Aura and help to fund the U.S. regulatory
program.
Distribution Further Beefed Up
On the heels of the ex-U.S. launch of Aura Verisante has
significantly expanded their distribution. Over the last two
months Verisante has penned agreements with several distributors
covering large swaths of Europe including Germany, Switzerland, and
Austria. Laserwelt has a substantial footprint throughout
Germany, Austria and Lichtenstein and is a top distributor of
medical devices. Germany, in particular, is expected to be an
important territory for Verisante's Aura as it is the only country
with a national skin cancer screening program and one of the
largest markets for medical devices in general.
The other recently announced distribution agreements are with
Pacifica Handels AG covering Switzerland and an expanded agreement
with BO-Pharma which now also covers the Nordic countries of
Norway, Denmark, Finland and Iceland in addition to the initial
agreement which was for the Benelux region (Belgium, Netherlands,
Luxembourg). And as a reminder, Verisante had previously
announced a distribution agreement with Clarion Medical
Technologies for the Canadian market.
Initial Sales Commenced
In late January Verisante announced that they received their
first orders for Aura from their distributors in Canada and
Europe. Manufacturing was up and running and shipping was
expected to begin in the following weeks. This timeline
continues to be largely commensurate with our earlier
expectations.
Aura Continues To Rack Up Awards
Verisante's trophy case continues to fill up with the latest
award coming in early February when Aura won the 2013 Prism Award
in the Life Sciences and Biophotonics category. The award was
presented to VRSEF management during the annual SPIE Photonics West
conference which attracts over 1,500 companies and 20,000 attendees
and which is billed as the world's largest and most influential
photonics and optics event. The award recognized Aura as the
best new photonics product on the market and beat out entries from
throughout the world including a microscope objective from imaging
giant Olympus and an ultrafast laser from Femtolasers, both of
which were finalists for the award.
Just days after the SPIE event Aura was named a 2013 finalist
for an Edison Award under the Science/Medical,
Diagnostic/Analytical Systems category. Per the Edison Awards
website describing the awards,
"The Edison Awards™ are among the most prestigious
accolades honoring excellence in new product and service
development, marketing, human-centered design and innovation.
Unique to the world of award programs, the Edison Awards™ are
focused on the innovators as much as the innovations. Award winners
represent "game changing" products, services and excellence and
leadership in innovation around four criteria: Concept, Value,
Delivery and Impact. An Edison Award represents significant value
to the award winner and to the cause of innovation."
Verisante and Aura again appear to be in good company as a
finalist. The other three finalists in their category are; 3M
Molecular Detection System by 3M, AccuVein AV400 by AccuVein Inc,
and 3-D Motion Capture System by Dynamic Athletic Research
Institute.
As a reminder Verisante and their cancer detection products and
technology have already racked up a number of high profile
accolades over the recent past including Popular Science's Best of
What's New Award for 2011, being named as a top cancer breakthrough
of 2011 by the Canadian Cancer Society and the company being named
as the top ranking technology and life sciences company on the TSX
Venture 50.
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