Life sciences briefing: Monday, Oct. 1, 2007
Featured companies: Abiant, CellXplore, Diffusion Pharmaceuticals, WMR Biomedical, Zosano Pharmaceuticals
Diffusion Pharma raises $4.5M for vascular-disease and brain-cancer drug — Charlottesville, Va.-based Diffusion Pharmaceuticals, a biotech focused on drugs that enhance oxygen diffusion, raised $4.5 million in a private placement. Angel investors provided the funding, which brings Diffusion’s take to $10.2 million in equity and $2.6 million in government R&D grants.
Diffusion’s lead drug candidate — trans sodium crocetinate, or TSC — is designed to increase oxygen levels in otherwise oxygen-starved tissues. The drug just completed an early-stage clinical trial for safety, and will move on to mid-stage trials in two conditions: peripheral vascular disease and brain cancer.
Abiant draws $600K for advanced bio-imaging — Chicago’s Abiant, a device company now developing image-processing methods and software to speed the process of drug development, raised $600,000 in a private placement. Heartland Angels, Kettering Medical Center, and other investors provided the funding.
CellXplore raises $500,000 for breast-cancer diagnostics — CellXplore, a New Brunswick, N.J., biotech working on blood proteins that indicate early signs of cancer, raised $500,000 in new funding. Foundation Venture Capital Group provided the cash. The company has identified several “biomarkers” found in blood that it believes may not only identify the disease, but help oncologists assess different types and stages of cancer.
Heart- and eye-device maker WMR Biomedical assembles $13.1M — Cambridge, Mass.-based WMR Biomedical (no Web site, apparently), a developer of medical devices for cardiology and ophthalmology, raised $13.1 million in a second funding round, PE Hub reports, citing a regulatory filing. Investors included Intersouth Partners, North Bridge Venture Partners and Polaris Venture Partners. Although WMR remains largely tight-lipped about its intentions, this page on the Massachusetts Biotechnology Industry Directory site suggests it has a pretty illustrious scientific pedigree, as its founders include Harvard chemist George Whitesides and MIT’s Bob Langer.
Macroflux changes name to Zosano Pharma — There isn’t a whole lot more to say about this, actually, although the company put out a full release about it. Zosano is based in Fremont, Calif., and develops needle-free “transdermal” patches that use drug-coated “microprojections” — each about 200 microns long — to penetrate the outer layer of skin. Since the main difference between a microprojection and a needle seems to be whether the pointy object actually injects a drug or not — something of an academic distinction to anyone on the receiving end, I suspect — it’s not entirely clear to me what sort of advantage this system may have over competing needle-free approaches, such as that of Stratagent, which recently merged with Corium (our coverage in the first item here).
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About the Author, David P. Hamilton
David Hamilton has been writing for VentureBeat LifeScience since April 2007. He formerly spent 14 years as a reporter for the Wall Street Journal in its San Francisco and Tokyo bureaus. Prior to that, he spent several years as a reporter at Science Magazine and as a reporter/researcher for the New Republic, both in Washington.