Note 8 - Note Payable

3 Months Ended

Mar. 31, 2014

Debt Disclosure [Abstract]

Debt Disclosure [Text Block]

Note 8.  Note Payable

Hercules Credit Agreement

In November 2013, the Company entered into a loan agreement with Hercules Technology Growth Capital, Inc. (“Hercules”) which permits up to $20 million in capital to be distributed in multiple tranches (the “Hercules Credit Agreement”). The Company drew the first tranche of $5 million upon closing of the Hercules Credit Agreement in November 2013 and used approximately $4 million of the proceeds to repay the outstanding obligations under its loan agreement with Oxford Finance LLC and Horizon Technology Finance Corporation as discussed further below. The Company anticipates that it will use any additional funding up to $15 million as provided under the agreement for working capital or in support of its previously announced strategic acquisition initiative, which is designed to identify new technologies and clinical stage products for its development pipeline.

The obligations under the Hercules Credit Agreement are in the form of secured indebtedness bearing interest at a calculated prime-based variable rate (11.25% per annum since inception). Payments under the loan agreement are interest only for the first twelve months after loan closing, followed by a 30-month amortization period of principal and interest through the scheduled maturity date.

As a fee in connection with the Hercules Credit Agreement, the Company issued Hercules a warrant exercisable for a total of 194,986 shares of the Company’s common stock (the “Hercules Warrant”) at a per share exercise price of $3.59, with 50% immediately exercisable for cash or by net exercise from November 25, 2013 and the remaining 50% to be exercisable upon Hercules funding any subsequent tranches. The Hercules Warrant will expire November 25, 2018. Hercules has certain rights to register the common stock underlying the Hercules Warrant pursuant to a Registration Rights Agreement with the Company dated November 25, 2013. The registration rights expire on the date when such stock may be sold under Rule 144 without restriction or upon the first year anniversary of the registration statement for such stock, whichever is earlier.

The Company valued the Hercules Warrant using the Black-Scholes option pricing model and recorded $521,763 in 2013 as deferred financing fees.  In calculating the value of the warrants, the Company assumed a volatility rate of 102%, risk free interest rate of 1.37%, an expected life of 5 years, a stock price of $3.55 (closing price on date of the Hercules Warrant) and no expected forfeitures nor dividends.  In connection with the Hercules Credit Agreement, the Company incurred cash expenses of $352,378 which were also recorded as deferred financing fees.  These deferred financing fees are being amortized as interest expense using the effective interest method over the life of the loan.  For the first three months of 2014, the Company incurred $140,625 in interest expense and amortized $89,676 in deferred financing fees as interest expense in connection with the Hercules Credit Agreement.

The Hercules Credit Agreement contains customary covenants, including covenants that limit or restrict the Company’s ability to grant liens, incur indebtedness, make certain restricted payments, merge or consolidate and make dispositions of assets. Upon the occurrence of an event of default under the Hercules Credit Agreement, the lenders may cease making loans, terminate the Hercules Credit Agreement, declare all amounts outstanding to be immediately due and payable and foreclose on or liquidate the Company’s assets that comprise the lenders’ collateral. The Hercules Credit Agreement specifies a number of events of default (some of which are subject to applicable grace or cure periods), including, among other things, non-payment defaults, covenant defaults, a material adverse effect on the Company or its assets, cross-defaults to other material indebtedness, bankruptcy and insolvency defaults and material judgment defaults. The Company has maintained compliance with these covenants.

Following is a schedule of future principle payments due on the Hercules Credit Agreement:

For the year ending March 31:	Hercules Credit Agreement
2015	$	439,218
2016		1,878,096
2017		2,104,767
2018		577,919
Total	$	5,000,000

Oxford & Horizon Credit Agreement

In June 2012, the Company entered into a Loan and Security Agreement (the “Oxford & Horizon Credit Agreement”) with Oxford Finance LLC (“Oxford”) and Horizon Technology Finance Corporation (“Horizon”). The Oxford & Horizon Credit Agreement provided for a secured term loan of up to $10 million, with 50% of any loans to be funded by Oxford and 50% to be funded by Horizon. The aggregate loan amount could have been advanced in two tranches of $5 million each. The first tranche (the “Term A Loan”) was made available to the Company on June 27, 2012 and the second tranche was to be made available, if at all, during the period beginning on the date that the Company achieved positive data in its Phase III clinical trial of RFA and ThermoDox® (the “HEAT Study”) and ending on March 31, 2013.  On January 31, 2013, the Company announced it did not meet the primary endpoint of the HEAT Study.   

The Term A Loan was originally scheduled to mature on October 15, 2015.  As a result of the Hercules Credit Agreement discussed above, the Company terminated the Oxford & Horizon Credit Agreement and repaid the outstanding principle, accrued interest and termination fees totaling approximately $4.1 million.

The proceeds of the Oxford & Horizon Credit Agreement were used to fund the Company’s working capital and general corporate purposes. The obligations under the Oxford & Horizon Credit Agreement were secured by substantially all assets of the Company other than its intellectual property and certain other agreed-upon exclusions.

As a fee in connection with the Oxford & Horizon Credit Agreement, the Company issued warrants to Horizon and Oxford (the “Oxford & Horizon Warrants”) to purchase the number of shares of the Company’s common stock equal to 3% of each loan amount divided by the exercise price of $13.14 per share, which was calculated as the average NASDAQ closing price of the Company’s common stock for the three days prior to the funding of the loan amount.  This resulted in 11,415 warrant shares issued in connection with the Term A Loan.  The Oxford & Horizon Warrants issued in connection with the Term A Loan are exercisable for cash or by net exercise and will expire seven years after their issuance, which is June 27, 2019.

The Company valued the Oxford & Horizon Warrants using the Black-Scholes option pricing model and recorded $73,654 as deferred financing fees.  In calculating the value of the warrants, the Company assumed a volatility rate of 74.3%, risk free interest rate of 1.10%, an expected life of 3.5 years, a stock price of $12.60 which was the closing price on date of issuing the Oxford & Horizon Warrant) and no expected forfeitures nor dividends.  In connection with the Oxford & Horizon Credit Agreement, the Company incurred cash expenses of $217,715 which were recorded as deferred financing fees in 2012.  These deferred financing fees were amortized as interest expense over the life of the loan.   During the first three months of 2013, the Company paid $146,874 in interest expense and amortized $31,560 of deferred financing fees as interest expense. The Term A Loan bore interest at a fixed rate of 11.75%. 

Capital Lease

In November 2011, the Company financed $144,448 of lab equipment through a capital lease.  This lease obligation has thirty monthly payments of $5,651 through February 2014.  During the first quarter of 2014, the Company made principal and interest payments totaling $11,303 to satisfy the remaining obligation under this capital lease.