Avinger gets up to $40mm in mezzanine financing

PDL BioPharma Inc. (cancer and immune therapeutics) has agreed to provide cardiovascular device developer Avinger Inc. with up to $40mm in a mezzanine financing. Avinger gets $20mm at closing and the remainder when it achieves certain revenue milestones. In exchange, PDL gets interest on the principal amount outstanding and a low single-digit royalty based on Avinger’s revenues through April 2018. The money will be used to continue developing and eventually commercialize Avinger’s Ocelot and Lightbox lumivascular technologies, and to develop Pantheris, its next-generation lumivascular atherectomy device. Avinger’s technologies provide intravascular imaging within an interventional cardiovascular device. A physician is then able to view real-time images of the inside of an artery. Last July Avinger brought in $33mm through its Series D round.