VentureBeat

TODAY’S HEADLINES:

InfraReDx takes $17M for arterial-plaque detection (VentureWire)
Cancer-drug developer Serenex sells out to Pfizer for undisclosed sum (release)
Life-sciences fund Longitude Capital raises $95M (VentureWire)
Hospital consultant Intercede Health names Gray Miller as CEO (release)

InfraReDx takes $17M for arterial-plaque detection – InfraReDx, a Burlington, Mass., developer of diagnostic systems that detect arterial plaque, [...]

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Last week, the Irvine, Calif., startup PrimeGen Biotech made a startling claim: It had successfully transformed adult skin, kidney and retina cells into stem cells, without using viral gene therapy that could trigger cancer. That would represent a significant advance over the discovery last year (see our coverage) that inserting just four genes into ordinary [...]

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Patents generally have a fixed lifetime, but some can linger on like zombies, thanks to clever lawyering that extends their life unnaturally.
Zombies’ cost to the healthcare system can be significant. Genentech’s Cabilly patent, for instance, should have expired in 2006, but instead stands to cost buyers of antibody drugs $1 billion or more over the [...]

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(UPDATED: See below.)
A few weeks ago, we broke the news that 5AM Ventures is nurturing a stealthy startup called — for now — ImmunoNewco. The trail led back to the Danish biotech Borean Pharma, which is developing protein-based drugs against autoimmune conditions, and which may be in the process of transferring some or all of [...]

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Like any other Internet craze, Health 2.0 is plagued with a glut of startups that are all doing variations on the same thing — health-related search, social communities, and physician ratings/directories.
So how do startups make it when one site looks much like the next? Over at VentureBeat Life Sciences, we take a look at CareSeek, [...]

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The Health 2.0 movement, as I’ve noted before, makes some big claims about the Internet’s power to transform the relationships between patients and doctors, hospitals, insurers and each other. Some of that is undoubtedly true, and there’s a fascinating amount of innovation going on in this area– helped along by a recent torrent of venture [...]

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TODAY’S HEADLINES:

Arriva Pharma recaps with $6M for respiratory anti-inflammatory drugs (release)
Genetic tester Sciona gets another $5.2M, distribution deal (VentureWire)
Joint resurfacer Arthrosurface takes in $4M (release)
Automated medication dispenser MDG Medical receives $14M in debt, equity (release)
California Stem Cell raises funds for heart, neurodegenerative treatments (release)

Arriva Pharma recaps with $6M for respiratory [...]

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I’ve been generally unsympathetic to laments that biotech and medical-device companies will suffer if U.S. patent law is reformed, and that has a lot to do with some of the grotesque but legal patent abuses biopharma companies have perpetrated over the years in order to lock out competition for as long as possible. While Big [...]

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TODAY’S HEADLINES:

RNAi developer PhaseRx gets $4M of a pledged $19M (Seattle Times)
TyRx Pharma, drug-device combo maker, raises $25M (release)
Agennix aims at $40M for cancer drugs (VentureWire)
Starr Life Sciences goes after $1.6M for small-animal vital-signs scanner (VW)
CardioNet sets IPO terms, aims to raise $96M (IPOhome)

RNAi developer PhaseRx gets $4M of a [...]

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The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Google will announce its long-awaited online health service featuring “personal health records” today. A closer reading of that story, however — bolstered by a timely CNET piece — suggests that Google will simply preview its service at a healthcare-IT trade show now underway in Orlando.
A preview is better than nothing, of [...]

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(UPDATED: See below.)
Well, the WSJ says so in this somewhat breathless report that states Google will announce its long-awaited personal health-record service today.
My first thought was that the announcement was timed to get Google on the record in advance of the Health2.0 “Spring Fling” conference in San Diego next week, which will feature lots [...]

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InSound Medical, a medical-device startup in Newark, Calif., wants to let people with hearing loss regain that sense without having to wear a conspicuous hearing aid. Instead of clipping around the ear or fitting precariously into the opening of the auditory canal, the company’s Lyric hearing aid is implanted deeper into that canal, where it [...]

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Plenty of startups these days want to help you find and compare doctors online, but there’s a problem: Each one independently compiles its own basic information on physicians, leading to a welter of inconsistent data.
Now a consortium of nine health-related companies, many of them part of the “Health 2.0″ movement, have a solution — an [...]

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TODAY’S HEADLINES:

InSound Medical raises $11M for “invisible” hearing aids (VBLS exclusive)
Corventis takes in $20M for heart-failure therapy (VBLS exclusive)
Molecular diagnostics user AssureRx raises $1M (Cincinnati Enquirer)
Arresto Biosciences, cancer-drug developer, raises funds (VentureWire)
San Diego’s Obalon raises $4.7M for drug discovery (peHUB)

InSound Medical raises $11M for “invisible” hearing aids – This item [...]

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(UPDATED: See below.)
A group of nine healthcare companies and providers are aiming to turn the tables on often disorganized medical record-keeping — by standardizing information about doctors themselves.
The effort, known as dCard, is aimed at bringing a certain degree of order to the mishmash of information that dozens of online physician directory and rating services [...]

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