VentureBeat

TODAY’S HEADLINES:

• Mauna Kea Tech raises $30M for in-vivo cellular imaging (release)
• Knopp Neuro takes in $10M for Lou Gehrig’s drug (release)
• Cardiovascular Systems, arterial-plaque device maker, files for $86M IPO (Edgar)
• Diagnostics maker BG Medicine withdraws IPO (release)
• Signature Genomics Labs sells stake to Ampersand Ventures (release)
• Cambridge Temp raises £375K for new ovulation detector (release)

Mauna Kea Tech raises $30M for in-vivo cellular imaging — Mauna Kea Technologies, a Paris, France, developer of cellular-imaging technology, raised $30 million in a new financing round. Investors included the U.S.-based Psilos Group, France-based Seventure and Creadev.

Mauna Kea makes and sells instruments that image living tissue at the microscopic level, making possible minimally invasive examination of the gastrointestinal tract and lungs in a way that may make some tissue biopsies unnecessary. The funding will allow the company to expand its commercial operations and pursue clinical trials aimed at establishing its technology’s usefulness in diagnosing problems in the esophagus, colon, stomach and bile duct.

Knopp Neuro takes in $10M for Lou Gehrig’s drug — Pittsburgh-based Knopp Neurosciences, a company developing a drug for Lou Gehrig’s disease, raised $10 million in a second funding round. Investors included Saturn Partners II, Kramer Capital Partners and LaunchCyte.

The latest financing involved the exercise of milestone-based callable warrants held by existing investors. Knopp anticipates calling another $10 million in the second round once it begins mid-stage human tests of its lead drug candidate, KNS-760704.

Knopp is developing that drug as a potential treatment for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s disease, an irreversible and eventually fatal neurodegenerative disease. KNS-760704, however isn’t exactly a new drug — it’s an “enantiomer,” or mirror-image copy, of an existing neurological drug sold as Mirapex, a treatment for so-called restless-legs syndrome. Knopp claims that its version of that drug may help protect nerve cells from the relentless destruction they face in ALS, but without side effects that it says limit the use of Mirapex in this way. The drug has completed early “phase I” human tests in healthy volunteers and plans to launch a mid-stage safety study in ALS patients this year.

Cardiovascular Systems, arterial-plaque device maker, files for $86M IPO — St. Paul, Minn.-based Cardiovascular Systems, a developer of medical devices for the treatment of arterial plaque, filed to raise $86.3 million in an initial offering. The company makes and sells a sort of minimally invasive “rotary sander” with a diamond-head bit that grinds away artery-blocking deposits, or plaques, from peripheral blood vessels in the limbs.

Depending on who you believe, Cardiovascular has raised either $11 million (according to peHUB) or $12.5 million (according to VentureWire) over the past several months. The company’s artery-clearing device received FDA approval last September, but as of Sept. 30, 2007, it hadn’t generated significant sales, unsurprisingly. The startup has an accumulated deficit of $72 million since its formation in 1989. See our previous coverage of the company here (third item).

Diagnostics maker BG Medicine withdraws IPO — Waltham, Mass.-based BG Medicine, a developer of molecular diagnostics, withdrew its attempted IPO filing, citing market conditions. The company had previously dropped its expected share-price range by close to 40 percent (see our coverage here), but apparently failed to draw enough interest even at the lower price. That wasn’t the only setback BG Medicine faced — it had previously made plans to list its shares on Amsterdam’s EuroNext exchange, but apparently never followed through.

As a result, the startup is apparently in dire need of fresh investment. According to a December amendment to its IPO filing, BG Medicine had only $622,000 in cash and equivalents, plus another $5.3 million in “restricted” cash and short-term investments, on hand as of Sept. 30.

Featured companies: Ablynx, Bind Biosciences, Maas Biolab, Oriel Therapeutics, ThromboVision, Xcellerex

(UPDATED: See below.)

Contract biomanufacturer Xcellerex pulls in $31M — Marlborough, Mass.-based Xcellerex, a startup that provides contract “bioprocess” development and manufacturing, raised $31 million in a third funding round. Investors included VantagePoint Venture Partners, Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers, and SCG Investments.

Xcellerex develops modular “turnkey” manufacturing systems for complex biomolecules such as the proteins, peptides, antibodies and nucleic acids used in biotech drugs and vaccines. The company doesn’t, however, appear to name any of the corporate partners for which it is presumably providing these services.

Maas Biolab receives $2.1M grant for potential Lou Gehrig’s treatment — Maas Biolab, an Albuquerque, N.M., company focused on turning the older immunosuppressive drug cyclosporine into a treatment for Lou Gehrig’s disease, received a $2.1 million grant to further its work. The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke provided the funding.

Maas believes that cyclosporine is a neuroprotective drug and says that it extends the lives of mice with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, the technical name for Lou Gehrig’s disease. The company’s experimental drug Mitogard is a proprietary form of cyclosporine specifically intended for adminstration into cerebrospinal fluid. It’s not clear from the Maas Web site if it developed Mitogard or licensed it from elsewhere. The drug is not yet in clinical trials; Maas says the drug will undergo “dose escalation” and “pharmacokinetics” studies — that is, work to ascertain its dose-effectiveness and the way it is distributed and then broken down and eliminated by the body — in order to enable an application for human tests.

Nanopartical startup Bind Biosciences hooks $2M award for targeted drugs — Bind Biosciences, a Cambridge, Mass., biotech developing nanoparticles capable of ferrying drugs to specific locations in the body, received a $2 million grant to further its work. NIST provided the funding.

Bind Biosciences is one of several startups hoping to tailor the biological, physical and chemical properties of nanoparticles in ways that will cause them to hone in on particular tissues or protein targets. By attaching drug molecules to these nanoparticles, it should theoretically be possible to turn them into a new version of “smart-bomb” targeted therapies. Other startups at work in this space that we’ve written about include Tempo Pharmaceuticals and Carigent Therapeutics (see our coverage here and here).

Oriel Therapeutics raises undisclosed sum for new drug inhaler — Oriel Therapeutics, a Research Triangle Park, N.C., device maker focused on a new form of inhaler, raised an undisclosed sum in a third funding round, VentureWire reports (subscription required). The investment was lead by New Leaf Venture Partners; the company declined to disclose other investors or the amount. Oriel claims to be developing a new type of “active” inhaler for drugs for asthma or lung disease.

OTHER HEADLINES OF NOTE:

• Houston’s ThromboVision gets $1.5M grant for personalized-medicine diagnostics (Houston Business Journal)
• Infusion-services firm Critical Homecare Solutions files for $125M IPO (Edgar)
• Belgium’s Ablynx, maker of mini-antibodies from llamas, plans IPO later this year (Reuters)

UPDATE: Expanded items on Xcellerex, Maas Biolab, Bind Biosciences, and Oriel Therapeutics.