Life sciences briefing: Monday, Jan. 21, 2008
TODAY’S HEADLINES:
- Joint-implant maker Ascension Orthopedics raises $21M (release)
- High-speed sequencer Genome Corp. draws another $250K (GenomeWeb News)
- Bausch & Lomb acquires implantable lens maker Eyeonics (release)
- Bederra buys up Houston’s Diagnos and its PET-scan diagnostics (release)
High-speed sequencer Genome Corp. draws another $250K — Genome Corp., a Providence, R.I., tool-maker focused on a new type of high-speed genome sequencing, raised another $250,000, GenomeWeb News reports. The Slater Technology Fund, a venture-capital entity backed by the Rhode Island state government, provided the funding.
Genome doesn’t appear to have said much publicly about its technology — its Web site is a stub and it doesn’t appear to have put out any of its own news releases. GenomeWeb, however, reports that the company is taking a different approach from many other new genome-sequencing concerns, which typically chop DNA into tiny pieces, sequence them quickly and then rely on sophisticated software to “stitch” the sequence back together. Genome, by contrast, is reportedly pursuing a “massively parallel” version of a standard technique known as Sanger dideoxy sequencing, which will involve much longer DNA stretches of 1,200 genetic “letters,” or base pairs.
The startup previously raised $250,000 from the Slater Fund back in September. Our coverage is here.
Bausch & Lomb acquires implantable lens maker Eyeonics — Eyeonics, an Aliso Viejo, Calif., medical-device company focused on implantable lenses, sold itself to Bausch & Lomb for an undisclosed sum. The release is here. Eyeonics’ operations will become part of Bausch & Lomb’s surgical business.
Eyeonics currently makes and sells the Crystalens implant, which replaces the eye’s natural lens in patients with severe cataracts. While many implantable intraocular lenses only permit the treated eye to focus at fixed distance, Eyeonics claims that the Crystalens can adjust and change shape in response to the movement of eye muscles, allowing it to fcous in a manner similar to that of a natural human lens. As a result, the implanted lens can also correct presbyopia, or age-releated far-sightedness.
We covered another implantable-lens maker, Belmont, Calif.-based PowerVision, here.
Joint-implant maker Ascension Orthopedics raises $21M — Austin, Tex.-based Ascension Orthopedics, a device company developing joint-replacement and other surgical implants, raised $21 million in a fourth funding round. Frazier Healthcare Ventures provided the funding.
Ascension’s first marketed product, which it released in 2001, was a total joint-replacement implant for the knuckle joint of the hand. The company has since launched several other joint replacements for the shoulder, elbow, wrist, fingers and toes.
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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.