Life sciences briefing: Friday, Dec. 14, 2007
TODAY’S HEADLINES:
- AcryMed, wound-healing specialist, sells itself to I-Flow for $25M (release)
- Stent maker Devax pulls $85M IPO filing (Edgar)
- Cempra Pharma gets $10M for anti-infective drugs (TechJournal South)
- Genesis Genomics takes in C$312K for DNA-based diagnostics (GenomeWeb)
AcryMed, wound-healing specialist, sells itself to I-Flow for $25M — AcryMed, a Beaverton, Ore., device maker focused on bleeding control and wound healing, agreed to sell itself to I-Flow, a publicly traded maker of drug-delivery systems, for $25 million in cash. The release is here.
AcryMed currently markets several types of wound dressings that use ionic silver — which apparently has antimicrobial properties — to prevent infection and “microlattices” to promote healing. AcryMed has also developed a technique for depositing silver particles on the surface of medical devices to prevent bacterial contamination. I-Flow says it expects the company’s technology to assist in developing new antimicrobial catheters and silver-based transparent wound dressings.
Cempra Pharma gets $10M for anti-infective drugs — Cempra Pharmaceuticals, a Research Triangle Park, N.C., specialty pharma focused on new drugs for overcoming antibiotic resistance, raised $10 million in a second funding round. Investors included Aisling Capital, Intersouth Partners, Optimer Pharmaceuticals and banker I. Wistar Morris.
That round is apparently still open, as PE Hub sourced its report to a regulatory filing. Cempra appears to have licensed its antibiotic candidates and its technology platform from Optimer Pharmaceuticals, with whom it concluded a deal in April 2006.
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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.