Avinger shareholders accept $5 million settlement

The plaintiffs in a class action suit against Avinger (NSDQ:AVGR) have approved the $5 million settlement that the company offered in March.

Shareholders sued the company and several of its officers and directors claiming that they made false and misleading statements about Avinger’s original product, Pantheris, in its 2015 initial public offering. Avinger makes image-guided, catheter-based atherectomy systems for treatment of peripheral artery disease. The company has already paid its $1.75 million portion of the settlement.

Avinger sold approximately 5 million shares to members of the public in its IPO at $13.00 per share. About 18 months after the offering and four months after the commercial launch of Pantheris, Avinger’s share price fell nearly 40% or -$4.53 after Avinger announced problems with the device based on customer complaints, according to court documents.

This week, lawyers for the plaintiffs also asked the court for $1.5 million in attorneys fees, plus expenses. In August, the company posted a second-quarter loss-per-share that missed an analyst’s expectation, sending its share price down on Wall Street despite nearly halving its losses to -$6.6 million, or -98¢ per share, on sales of $2.1 million.

Positive news for the quarter included FDA clearance and initial sales of the company’s next-generation Pantheris image-guided atherectomy device and successful treatment of patients in several centers throughout the U.S. Avinger raised an additional $3.55 million in July 2018 from the sale of securities under a registered direct offering and hired new chief medical and financial officers.

Avinger has $17.8 million in market capitalization and its share price was holding steady at $1.55 in mid-morning trading.

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