VentureBeat

TODAY’S HEADLINES:

• Metabolic-disease biotech NGM Biopharma raises $25M (peHUB)
• Heart, HIV drug maker Numerate acquires assets of Pharmix (release)
• Next-gen sequencer VisiGen promises $1,000 genome by late 2009 (Genome Technology)
• CalciMedica raises $5.5M for autoimmune drugs (VentureWire)
• Cancer-drug e-marketplace OneOncology raises funds (release)
• U.K. biotech Hunter-Fleming acquired by Newron for €8M (release)
• Intertek acquires Ireland’s Bioclin Labs, a contract research organization (release)

Metabolic-disease biotech NGM Biopharma raises $25M – South San Francisco-based NGM Biopharmaceuticals (Web site under construction), a biotech developing new drugs for heart and metabolic conditions, raised $25 million in a first funding round, peHUB reports. Investors included Column Group, Prospect Venture Partners and Rho Ventures.

NGM, currently helmed by Tularik founder David Goeddel on an acting basis, isn’t divulging much about its plans. According to VentureWire, the company is developing new treatments based on “post-genomic bioinformatics” (a virtually content-free buzzphrase if I’ve ever heard one) and “new approaches to human biology” (which isn’t much better). NGM plans to devote the funding to R&D spending over the next three years.

The company’s ties to the former Tularik — which was acquired by Amgen in 2004 — are worth noting. In addition to Goeddel, the company’s chief scientific officer, Jin-Long Chen, was formerly a VP of biology at Tularik, and then headed Amgen’s metabolic-disorders unit.

Heart, HIV drug maker Numerate acquires assets of Pharmix – I’ve updated this item and moved it into a standalone post here.

Next-gen sequencer VisiGen promises $1,000 genome by late 2009 – Does anyone else hear a bandwagon banging through town? Just three days after secretive Pacific Biosciences took the wraps off its high-speed sequencing effort, Houston-based VisiGen Biotechnologies laid down a new marker and said it plans to offer $1,000 sequencing of human genomes by the end of 2009 at the rate of roughly one genome a week.

The news, which comes courtesy of GenomeWeb, further turns up the pressure in the bragging-rights race to achieve the artificial “$1,000 genome” benchmark. More than a half-dozen companies have thrown their hats into the ring either explicitly or implicitly, each with its own complex approach to reading every one of the six billion DNA letters, or bases, in a human’s 23 pairs of chromosomes.

VisiGen was founded in 2000, and has received funding from Applied Biosystems and Houston’s SeqWright, as well as grants from the National Institutes of Health.

CalciMedica raises $5.5M for autoimmune drugs – San Diego’s CalciMedica, a biotech developing drugs for immune-related conditions, raised $5.5 million in a second funding round, VentureWire reports. Investors included Sanderling Ventures and SR One. We previously noted the startup’s first funding round here.

The company plans to attack autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and psoriasis by targeting a “calcium channel” — that is, a cellular mechanism that moves calcium in and out of cells — in immune-system components that govern the body’s adaptive immunity. That arm of the immune system sometimes goes haywire, producing autoimmune disease in which the body’s defenses attack normal tissue. CalciMedica acquired technology and drug candidates for targeting that calcium channel from TorreyPines Therapeutics in May.

TODAY’S HEADLINES:

• Taligen Therapeutics raises $65M for novel anti-inflammatory drugs (release)
• Dental-implant maker Biohorizons acquires Implant Logic (release)
• MAKO Surgical sets IPO terms, seeks $94M for knee implants and robots (Edgar)
• Canada’s Medical Ventures acquires two Israeli device startups (release)
• CRO Chiltern acquires Drug Development Solutions (release)

Taligen Therapeutics raises $65M for novel anti-inflammatory drugs –Aurora, Colo.-based Taligen Therapeutics, a biotech working on targeted anti-inflammatory drugs, raised $65 million in a second round of funding. The deal is one of the largest I can recall for an early stage company that’s not in the business of licensing in drugs from other companies for immediate clinical development.

Taligen’s focus is on the “complement system,” an arm of the innate immune system that reacts to threats by triggering a biochemical cascade that attracts immune cells and causes the release of inflammatory molecules such as cytokines. This sort of inflammation tends to rage out of control in autoimmune conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis or type 1 diabetes, eventually leading to serious tissue damage.

Existing targeted drugs for autoimmune disease typically take aim at only a few of the proteins involved in inflammation, leaving other “pathways” untouched. Taligen hopes to defuse the complement system at a more basic level, in particular by targeting “inhibiting factor B,” a protein that plays a key role in amplifying inflammatory response. As a result, the company hopes to merely tamp down activation of the complement system, not to block it altogether, which would likely leave individuals more vulnerable to infection.

Taligen’s drug candidates, which the company says will aim to treat both systemic and local inflammation, are still in preclinical development. That’s part of what makes the enormous size of the funding round such a surprise, since big bucks like these generally aren’t necessary until a biotech begins the expensive process of conducting human tests. In fact, though, the $65 million will be “tranched” and drawn down by the company only as necessary, so Taligen won’t have a huge pile of cash on its balance sheet until it’s ready to spend it.

Investors in the round included Alta Partners, Clarus Ventures, Sanderling Ventures, Tango and High Country Venture.

MAKO Surgical sets IPO terms, seeks $94M for knee implants and robots – MAKO Surgical, a Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., maker of knee implants and surgical robots, set its IPO terms and now hopes to raise as much as $93.8 million in its IPO. The company hopes to offer its shares at a price between $14 and $16 apiece.

MAKO markets a minimally invasive knee-repair system consisting of implants and a robotic-arm surgical devices. The aim is to minimize trauma to the knee in arthritic patients who might otherwise be candidates for full knee replacement. The MAKO system instead allows surgeons to “resurface” worn and damaged bones and then install small implants to restore their function. The company first received FDA approval for an early version of its system in 2005, and just this month was cleared to market its second major upgrade.

The company is still hemorrhaging cash — it reported a $15.9 million net loss on revenues of $355,382 in the first nine months of 2007. Most of its revenue to date has come from sales of implants and other disposable devices. MAKO says it has received some revenue from sales of the full robotic-surgery system, but that it can’t recognize it until it delivers version 2.0 of its system. The most recent release is version 1.2.

TODAY’S HEADLINES:

• TransEnterix gets $21M for minimally invasive GI surgery (release)
• Stem-cell developer Bioheart’s IPO postponed (Forbes.com)
• Medical-practice software provider AdvancedMD acquired by Francisco Partners (release)
• Peptimmune draws $8.2M for MS drug trials (release)
• Drug-delivery co. Talima Thera names Martin Babler CEO (release)
• Alimera Sciences aims for autumn IPO to fund diabetic eye-disease drug (VentureWire, sub req’d)

TransEnterix gets $21M for minimally invasive GI surgery — TransEnterix (no Web site), a Research Triangle Park, N.C., device maker developing tools for “natural orifice” gastrointestinal surgery, raised $21 million in a first funding round. Investors included SV Life Sciences, Parish Capital Advisers and Synergy Life Science Partners.

According to the Web site for Synecor, a North Carolina incubator that founded TransEnterix, the company is at work on tools and devices for minimally invasive “trans-oral” surgery using an endoscope passed through the mouth and down the esophagus. This procedure is designed to enable surgeries through the stomach wall and other unspecified “natural entry points,” potentially in a way that could supplant minimally invasive laparoscopic procedures that require entry through the abdominal wall. Patients would be consciously sedated during the procedure.

The funding will allow TransEnterix to “deliver” its first-generation tools, presumably for use in clinical trials, and to fund development of next-generation devices.

Stem-cell developer Bioheart’s IPO postponed — Bioheart, a Sunrise, Fla., developer of a stem-cell-based heart therapy, has postponed its troubled IPO. Although the company doesn’t seem to have officially yanked it yet, odds are now good that it will.

Bioheart’s woes started last October, when it abruptly slashed its offering price and fired its underwriters. The company’s IPO has lingered on life support ever since. We gave readers some good reasons to be skeptical about Bioheart — which, notably, is backed by former football great Dan Marino, among others — as long ago as last July.

Medical-practice software provider AdvancedMD acquired by Francisco Partners — AdvancedMD, a Salt Lake City provider of Web-based medical-practice management software — now there’s a mouthful — announced that it was acquired by the private-equity firm Francisco Partners. Financial terms weren’t disclosed.

AdvancedMD, founded in 1999, sells a series of Web-based products designed to handle administration, billing and electronic medical records for physicians. The company had previously raised venture funding from Dominion Ventures, Windward Ventures and Hunter Capital. Francisco has already named a new CEO, and said that it intends to “leverage” the company’s success with “additional resources” to accelerate its growth.

Peptimmune draws $8.2M for MS drug trials — Cambridge, Mass.-based Peptimmune, a biotech at work on drugs for autoimmune and metabolic conditions, raised $8.2 million in the first stage of its fourth funding round. The company anticipates closing a second tranche in the second quarter. Investors included New Enterprise Associates, MPM Capital, Hunt Ventures, Boston Medical Investors and Silicon Valley Bank Capital.

Peptimmune is focused on using protein fragments known as peptides to disrupt or otherwise modulate immune-system reactions associated with disease. Its lead candidate, PI-2301, is a “random sequence” peptide similar in certain respects to the approved drug Copaxone, which Peptimmune is currently testing against multiple sclerosis in early-stage human tests.

Alimera Sciences aims for autumn IPO to fund diabetic eye-disease drug — Alimera Sciences, an Alpharetta, Ga., biotech focused on eye disease, is contemplating an IPO this fall, VentureWire reports (subscription required). The funds will ideally support the launch of the company’s first innovative product, a treatment for a blinding complication of diabetes known as diabetic macular edema.

Alimera, which started life as a specialty pharma that resold over-the-counter eye products, began development of its current candidate, Medidur, in 2005. The treatment, co-developed with the nanotech company pSvidia, is a tiny structure designed to be injected into the back of the eye, where it steadily emits a corticosteroid called fluocinolone acetonide. The idea is to provide the smallest possible quantity of the steroid directly to the back of the eye, where a fluid buildup in the retina steadily obscures vision. Many ophthalmologists currently treat the condition with steroid injections, although no drugs are approved for the disease.

Medidur is currently in late-stage, phase III human tests. Alimera expects data from that trial in late 2009 and could file for approval in 2010.

(UPDATED: See below.)

Featured companies: Anaptys Biosciences, Arterial Remodeling Technologies, Cambria Biosciences, CaseNet, ChemoCentryx, Ensemble Discovery, MediQuest, Piedmont Pharmaceuticals, Raven Biotechnologies, Sensys Medical, Verus Pharmaceuticals, Xanodyne Pharmaceuticals

UPDATED: Expanded items on Anaptys, Arterial Remodeling, Raven Biotech, Sensys and MediQuest. Moved ChemoCentryx and Xanodyne to a separate item.

Antibody-drug maker Raven Biotech merges with VaxGen — Raven Biotechnologies, a South San Francisco biotech developing antibody drugs, is merging with the troubled, publicly held vaccine maker VaxGen. The confusingly worded release is here.

Although the deal isn’t technically a reverse merger, Raven is effectively taking over the shell that VaxGen has become. VaxGen, once best known for its pioneering, but ultimately failed, attempt to produce an AIDS vaccine, next set its hopes on producing anthrax vaccine for the U.S. government. But the company lost that contract in 2006. VaxGen had been delisted from the Nasdaq two years earlier. Since then, VaxGen has been looking to sell itself or to find some other combination with which it could make use of its cash ($56.5 million as of Sept. 30) and existing investment in biotech production facilities. [UPDATE: VaxGen's CFO wrote in to point out that the company also holds $20.7 million in "investment securities."]

Although Vaxgen will be the surviving company, Raven CEO George Schreiner will run the combined entity, most of whose business will consist of Raven’s antibody-drug development programs. The company’s lead candidate, RAV12, is currently in early-to-mid stage tests against a type of cander called adenocarcinoma. According to VentureWire, Raven has raised $115 million in venture funding.

All of which makes the deal’s valuation a bit puzzling. As of Sept. 30, VaxGen had 33.1 million shares outstanding, giving the company a market capitalization of $36.7 million at its closing price of $1.11 on the Pink Sheets. VaxGen will issue another 32 million shares and will end up with 51 percent of the combined company. Near as I can tell, that seems to value Raven at somewhere around $33 million, although I wouldn’t take that figure to the bank.

Before the deal can close, VaxGen needs to relist its stock on a national exchange. The two companies will undergo restructuring to save cash, and once combined will use Raven’s headquarters in South San Francisco.

Antibody-drug maker Anaptys raises $34M — Anaptys Biosciences, a San Diego biotech developing new antibody-based drugs, raised $33.9 million in a second funding round. Investors included Novo A/S, Frazier Healthcare Ventures, Alloy Ventures, Avalon Ventures, Numenor Ventures, WS Investment and Anaptys board member Nick Lydon.

Anaptys relies on a technique for producing large quantities of varied antibodies in order to find ones with the best “drug-like” properties. We’ve written about other companies working on similar “diversity generation” techniques, most recently AvidBiotics, which we described here.

Arterial Remodeling Tech gets €5.5M for absorbable stents — Paris-based Arterial Remodeling Technologies (no Web site), a device maker developing “bioresorbable” artery-opening stents, raised €5.5 million ($7.8 million). Investors included Matignon Technologies and SGAM Alternative Investments.

Stents are the meshlike tubes used to prop open blocked arteries following a heart attack. Existing stents can lead to side effects such as scarring and potentially dangerous blood clots, so companies such as ART are developing stents that slowly dissolve into harmless components such as carbon dioxide and water. Although ART doesn’t describe its technology in detail, see this 2004 press release about Guidant’s acquisition of a bioresorbable-stent startup and this article for a look at how these absorbable stents might work.

Glucose-meter maker Sensys Medical pulls in $3.8M — Chandler, Ariz.-based Sensys Medical, a device maker developing a non-invasive glucose meter for diabetics, raised $3.8 million of $4.5 million in bridge funding, VentureWire reports (subscription required). Investors included Adams Street Partners, Alliance Technology Ventures and Pappas Ventures.

MediQuest seeks $20M to $40M against Raynaud’s disease — Bothell, Wash.-based MediQuest, a biotech developing new treatments against Raynaud’s disease, aims to raise up to $40 million in a second funding round, VentureWire reports. The company recently reported positive late-stage data of its drug for Raynaud’s disease, a condition involving reduced blood flow to the extremities.

OTHER HEADLINES OF NOTE:

• Ensemble Discovery gathers $15M for DNA-based drugs (PE Hub)
• Piedmont Pharma draws $8.5M for parasitology drugs (release)
• CaseNet raises $7.5M for healthcare-management software (release)
• Cambria Biosciences pulls in $5M to fight neurodegenerative disease (release)
• Verus Pharma names Robert Keith as CEO (release)

Featured companies: AerovectRx, Dicerna Pharmaceuticals, Harmony Information Systems, Intelligent Hospital Systems, Merrion Pharmaceuticals, Syntaxin, SymBio Pharmaceuticals

UPDATED: Expanded items on Harmony Info, SymBio Pharma and Merrion Pharma, added Dicerna item.
UPDATE REDUX: Added Syntaxin item.

U.K. biotech Syntaxin raises £16M for pain and nervous-system drugs — Syntaxin, a U.K. biotech focused on drugs that affect cell secretion, raised £16 million ($33.2 million) in a second funding round. The company’s release is here.

Investors in the round included SR One, the venture capital arm of GlaxoSmithKline; Life Science Partners; Abingworth; Johnson & Johnson Development; and Quest for Growth. Syntaxin is developing drugs derived from bacterial toxins that block the release of chemicals known as neurotransmitters, which may be useful in treating pain, respiratory disease, neurological problems and obesity and related metabolic disorders.

Harmony Info, a healthcare IT provider, raises $28M to fund acquisition and expand sales — Reston, Va.-based Harmony Information Systems, a maker of healthcare software for government agencies and nonprofits, raised $28 million in a second funding round consisting of equity and debt. Investors included JMI Equity, Updata Partners, ORIX Venture Finance and Comerica Bank.

On Monday, Harmony announced the acquisition of rival Synergy Software Technologies for undisclosed terms. Harmony provides IT systems that handle electronic medical records, billing and insurance-claims management.

Japan’s SymBio Pharma closes in on ¥2B funding — Tokyo’s SymBio Pharmaceuticals, a specialty pharma founded in 2005, is near closing a ¥2 billion ($17.4 million) third round of funding, VentureWire reports (subscription required). The company is focused on acquiring and developing drugs for cancer, blood disease and autoimmune conditions.

Co-founder Lowell Sears, a former Amgen CFO and now CEO of Sears Capital Management, has long been active in the Asian pharmaceuticals market. From VentureWire:

He was a founding investor, for instance, in Peninsula Pharmaceuticals Inc., an Alameda, Calif.-based company that licensed late-stage antibiotics from Japanese companies. Johnson & Johnson acquired Peninsula in 2005, and Forest Laboratories Inc. bought Peninsula spinout Cerexa Inc. in January.

Sears and Fuminori Yoshida, whom Sears once hired to be president of Amgen’s Japanese unit, started SymBio to do the reverse of Peninsula by acquiring Asian product rights.

Like JapanBridge, an MPM Capital-founded company we wrote about here, SymBio essentially aims to acquire drugs or drug candidates from elsewhere in order to win regulatory approval and sell them in Japan.

Irish specialty pharma Merrion slashes IPO range — Dublin’s Merrion Pharmaceuticals, a specialty pharma we last checked in on over the weekend, sharply lowered its expected IPO range. The company, which had hoped to sell as many as 4.6 million shares (listed in the U.S. as American Depositary Shares) for $10 to $12, now expects only $6 to $7 per ADS.

That lowers Merrion’s maximum IPO take to $32.2 million, down from an earlier $55.2 million, and gives the company a post-offering market capitalization of up to $122.9 million. Merrion rejiggers existing drugs to make them easier to take by mouth.

New RNA-interference biotech Dicerna shoots for $13M, aims to work around RNAi patents — Dicerna Pharmaceuticals, a stealthy, Boston-based biotech in the field of RNA interference, aims to raise $13 million in a first funding round, the In Vivo blog reports. The company, co-founded by John Rossi of Duarte, Calif.’s City of Hope National Medical Center and Mark Behlke of Integrated DNA Technologies, is focused on making new drugs via the “gene-silencing” properties of RNAi while sidestepping a patent thicket that has grown up around the technology. The company expects to close its funding in November.

Unless you’re a nucleic-acid chemist (or a patent lawyer focused on same), the details of Dicerna’s strategy are most likely beside the point, although I’m sure the In Vivo folks would welcome your attention if you’re really interested. Suffice to say that the company’s founders believe they’re found a new way to build these gene-silencing molecules that isn’t covered by some of the fundamental patents in the field. If that’s true — and no one will really know for years, if ever — it could spark new attention from Big Pharma and other biotechs that have so far sat out the increasingly frantic, and expensive, race to make RNAi drugs.

As with any early-stage technology, it’s helpful to bear in mind that no one has yet demonstrated that RNAi molecules can even work as safe and effective drugs, much less that they’ll be the magic bullet that some have claimed. Still, a lot of money has been sloshing around the field recently (see our coverage in the third item here), and there’s little doubt that deep-pocketed folks still on the sidelines will want to at least check out Dicerna’s claims.

OTHER HEADLINES OF NOTE:

• IH Systems pulls in $7.6M for robot syringe-filler (release)
• AerovectRx names Ed Cannon as new CEO (release)

Featured companies: AngioScore, Forsight Labs, Genoptix, Metastatix, Optherion, QLT

UPDATED: See below.

Artery opener AngioScore pulls in $30M — AngioScore, a Fremont, Calif., maker of balloon catheters used to open up clogged arteries, raised $30 million in a fifth funding round. Investors included Telegraph Hill Partners, Psilos Group Management, QuestMark Partners, L.P., UV Partners, California Technology Ventures and Innomed Ventures.

AngioScore’s balloon catheters, which inflate inside blocked blood vessels to restore blood flow, are designed to overcome problems that sometimes occur during traditional angioplasty procedures. Conventional angioplasty can lead to tears and splits in the plaque that lines blocked arteries and can damage arterial walls as well. AngioScore claims its new catheter overcomes this problem by making precise cuts, or “scores,” in the plaque, thereby reducing the chance that it will crack and split unpredictably.

Optherion raises $37M for macular degeneration — New Haven, Conn.-based Optherion, a biotech focused on new treatments for forms of the eye condition macular degeneration, raised $37 million in a first funding round. Investors included Quaker BioVentures, Domain Associates, Johnson & Johnson Development, Purdue Pharmaceutical Products, Pappas Ventures, Biogen Idec New Ventures and GE Healthcare Financial Services.

Optherion is developing drugs that affect the “alternative complement pathway,” an arm of the immune system that may be implicated in two forms of macular degeneration, an eye condition that can lead to partial blindness, and possibly other autoimmune disorders as well. The company was founded in 2005 following discoveries that linked the alternative-complement system to macular degeneration.

Metastatix draws $35M for low-side-effect drugs — Atlanta’s Metastatix, a biotech working on drugs for AIDS, cancer and inflammatory disease, raised $35 million in a second financing round. Investors included Frazier Healthcare, H.I.G. Ventures, the Aurora Funds, CM Capital, SR One, MedImmune Ventures, Georgia Venture Partners, Centrosome Ventures and the State of Georgia.

Metastatix is developing drugs that block a cellular receptor called CXCR4, which is best known as one of the two ways HIV can enter and infect cells. CXCR4 may also be involved in cancer and inflammation. Metastatix says it is particularly focused on drug candidates with the “fewest possible side effects.”

Optical-device incubator Forsight Labs sells unnamed “newco” to QLT for $42M+ — Forsight Labs, an incubator for optical-device companies backed by Morgenthaler Ventures, Split Rock Partners and Versant Ventures, agreed to sell its second, unnamed startup to QLT for $42 million plus milestone payments that could be worth $25 million or more. The startup, known only as ForSight NewCo II, has developed a new type of ocular drug-delivery system that could potentially be used to treat a variety of conditions including glaucoma. The release describing the deal is here.

Diagnostic-services company Genoptix sets IPO terms, aims for $92M — The Carlsbad, Calif., provider of cancer and blood-disease diagnostic services, said it plans to sell up to 5.75 million shares at a price of $14 to $16 apiece, for a maximum possible take of $92 million. The company’s SEC filing is here. We covered the company in some detail at the time of its IPO filing here.

UPDATE: Added items on Metastatix and Optherion.

(UPDATED at 7:40pm PT: See below.)

Featured companies: Adnexus Therapeutics, BioForm Medical, Confirma, Cardiovascular Systems, Mirabilis Medica, Neuromed Pharmaceuticals, PlaCor, Seno Medical Instruments, Vibrynt

BioForm Medical files $115M IPO for “medical aesthetics” — BioForm Medical, a San Mateo, Calif., developer of wrinkle fillers and other products for cosmetic procedures, filed to raise $115 million in an initial offering. BioForm’s major customers are plastic surgeons and dermatologists.

BioForm, however, takes pains to describe itself differently on its Web site. There, BioForm says it is “a privately-held medical device company developing and commercializing injectable implant products for soft and hard tissue augmentation.” It goes on to note that its main product, Radiesse, is marketed for “radiographic tissue marking, vocal cord insufficiency, craniofacial augmentation, and outside of the U.S for facial soft tissue augmentation.”

That all sounds pretty serious — nothing like expensive wrinkle treatments, right? But in its IPO filing, where stretching the truth could get it in trouble with the SEC, BioForm describes itself straightforwardly as “a medical aesthetics company focused on developing and commercializing products that are used by physicians to enhance a patient’s appearance.” As for Radiesse, it notes that “[w]e obtained FDA pre-market approval, or PMA, for our key commercial application of Radiesse, the correction of moderate to severe facial wrinkles and folds in December 2006.”

BioForm is not profitable, and its losses have widened over the past three years, although sales have increased over that period. The company accumulated a net loss of $35.2 million from 2005 to 2007 (its fiscal year ends June 30).

Stealthy Vibrynt raises $16M for medical devices — Vibrynt, a Mountain View, Calif., medical-device maker that has just spun out of the ExploraMed device incubator, raised $16 million in a first funding round, VentureWire reports (subscription required), citing regulatory filings. Investors included New Enterprise Associates and Delphi Ventures; NEA backs ExploraMed.

The financing closed in April. Vibrynt doesn’t have a Web site and hasn’t yet disclosed details about its technology.

Cardiovascular Systems raises $12.5M against peripheral artery disease — Cardiovascular Systems, a St. Paul, Minn., device maker focused on the removal of arterial plaque, raised $12.5 million in a still-open extension of its first funding round, VentureWire reports. The funding reportedly came from “some” of the company’s original investors, a group that includes Easton Capital Group, Maverick Capital, Mitsui & Co. Venture Partners and ITX Institutional Holdings.

Cardiovascular Systems has developed a device that essentially “sands” artery-blocking deposits known as plaque from the inside surfaces of blood vessels. The catheter-based device uses a rotating, diamond-coated head to scrub plaque from arteries. The company told VentureWire it is anticipating FDA clearance of the device within the next few weeks.

Mirabilis Medica gets $10.5M for fibroid treatment — Seattle’s Mirabilis Medica, a medical-device company focused on women’s health, raised $10.5 million in an extension to its first funding round. Investors included Arboretum Ventures, Split Rock Partners, Dow Venture Capital, and an individual investor.

Mirabilis Medica uses high-intensity, focused ultrasound to destroy tumors such as uterine fibroids by denaturing cellular proteins and causing cells to collapse into piles of goo. The company says the device may ultimately useful in other applications as well, but hasn’t yet specified them.

Confirma gets $2 million for medical-image analysis — Bellevue, Wash.-based Confirma, a maker of computer systems that automate the interpretation of medical images, raised $2 million in bridge financing on its way to a potential $15 million third round, VentureWire reports. Fluke Venture Partners provided the funding. Confirma’s first product analyzes MRI breast scans, and the company plans to launch a similar system for prostate MRIs later this year.

PlaCor receives $3.5M for blood diagnostics — Plymouth, Minn.-based PlaCor, which just named a new CEO yesterday (see the last item in our briefing here), has also raised $3.5 million in a second funding round, VentureWire reports. Funding was provided by “accredited angel investors,” the company told VentureWire. PlaCor develops diagnostic tests of platelet reactivity, which can help physicians monitor patient response to blood-thinning drugs that help prevent or break up clots.

Neuromed raises $53M, some from mystery investors – Vancouver’s Neuromed Pharmaceuticals, battered earlier this month after it discontinued work on a new pain drug in collaboration with Merck (see our coverage in the third item of this daily briefing), raised $53.3 million in a fifth funding round. The company didn’t disclose the lead investors or new investors in the round, acknowledging only “significant participation” from existing investors including MPM Capital, James Richardson & Sons, Neuro Discovery LP, GrowthWorks Capital (Working Opportunity Fund), BDC Venture Capital, CMDF, and the Royal Bank of Canada.

Neuromed, whose partnership with Merck continues, also recently licensed another experimental pain drug from a J&J subsidiary. BioWorld has more here.

Adnexus files for $86M IPO to develop new targeted biologics — Adnexus Therapeutics, a Waltham, Mass., biotech working on a new class of drugs it calls “Adnectins,” filed to raise as much as $86.25 million in an IPO. The company’s Adnectin drug candidates are engineered proteins derived from human fibronectin, a natural protein that plays a role in wound healing and binding cell receptor proteins.

Adnexus has seven drug candidates in development, only one of which has proceeded to human testing. The company intends to target cancer and other conditions such as autoimmune and neurodegenerative disease. (See our earlier coverage of the company in the fourth item of this daily briefing.)

Seno receives $2M for early cancer detection — Seno Medical Instruments, a San Antonio, Tex., device maker focused on early cancer detection, received $2 million from the Texas Emerging Technology Fund. Seno is developing “opto-acoustic” technology designed to indicate the presence of new blood vessels that feed tumors.

UPDATE (10:15am PT): Added items on Mirabilis Medica, Confirm and PlaCor.

UPDATE REDUX (7:40pm PT): Added items on Neuromed, Adnexus and Seno.

Read the rest of this entry »