VentureBeat

TODAY’S HEADLINES:

• 5AM Ventures puts $3.3M into stealthy ImmunoNewco (VBLS exclusive)
• NewLink Genetics raises $17M for cancer vaccine, immune drugs (VBLS exclusive)
• Biochip, stem-cell biotech Minerva Bio ousts CEO Jim Czirr and sues (release)
• Sonexa Therapeutics takes $30M for Alzheimer’s treatment (release)
• Tissue regenerator Healionics pulls in $1.7M (release)
• EGeen, clinical research organization, receives $245K (VentureWire)
• Barnvet Labs, HeMemics Bio get $75K apiece from Maryland gov’t (release)

5AM Ventures puts $3.3M into new immune-related startup – I’ve moved this item to a standalone post here.

NewLink Genetics raises $17M for cancer vaccine, immune drugs – I’ve moved the item to a standalone post here.

Biochip, stem-cell biotech Minerva Bio ousts CEO Jim Czirr and sues – This item is now a standalone post here.

Sonexa Therapeutics takes $30M for Alzheimer’s treatment – San Diego’s Sonexa Therapeutics (no Web site), a specialty pharma, raised $30 million in a first funding round. The proceeds will go toward licensing a so-far undisclosed compound from a Japanese pharmaceutical company that Solexa says is “being tested as a therapeutic to treat Alzheimer’s disease.”

Solexa will have worldwide rights to the experimental drug, excepting Japan and certain Asian countries. Investors in the round included Domain Associates, Scale Venture Partners, Alta Partners, AgeChem Venture Fund and MC Life Science Ventures.

Tissue regenerator Healionics pulls in $1.7M – Redmond, Wash.-based Healionics, a device company focused on tissue regeneration and biomaterials, raised $1.7 million in a first funding round. Individual investors, including Carl Lombardi, the former CEO of SpaceLabs Medical, and Sam Naficy, the medical director of the Naficy Plastic Surgery & Rejuvenation Center, provided the funding.

Healionics is focused on a new class of biomaterials it calls STAR, for sphere-templated angiogenic regeneration. These STAR materials are designed for insertable or implantable medical devices that need to integrate smoothly with and promote healing of the body’s tissues. In particular, Healionics claims that the materials are specifically engineered with “tightly controlled pore geometry” that maximizes the growth of blood vessels and tissue entry while minimizing the body’s tendency to “wall off” implants with scar tissue.

The company, founded last March, says it has established “multiple partnerships” for advancing the development of its materials. Possible applications include diabetes, wound care and infusion therapy.

EGeen, clinical research organization, receives $245K –EGeen, a contract research organization in Mountain View, Calif., raised $245,433 to expand its global operations, VentureWire reports. Ambient Sound Investments provided the funding.

EGeen conducts clinical trials for pharma and biotech companies in Estonia and other Eastern European nations. It has recently established a presence in the Ukraine and Romania. The company has previously raised $4.8 million in two funding rounds.

For Micell Technologies, a Raleigh, N.C., materials company that recently reinvented itself as a developer of drug-releasing stents, perhaps the third time will be the charm.

Founded in 1995, Micell specializes in the use of supercritical fluids, which are highly compressed gases that exhibit both gas and liquid properties. The company initially marketed liquefied carbon-dioxide systems to dry cleaners as an ecofriendly alternative to a solvent known as perchloroethylene. Its machines, however, were expensive, and Micell sold the garment-cleaning business in 2002.

The company next explored ways to use its carbon-dioxide technology to clean and process semiconductor wafers, a business that appears to have gone nowhere fast. According to VentureWire (subscription required), the company also looked into industrial-fabric applications, also apparently with little success.

Three years ago, Micell hit upon the notion of using carbon dioxide to apply drug coatings to medical devices and turned its attention to stents, the expandable mesh-like tubes that doctors use to prop open clogged arteries. The company’s strategy is to use its supercritical-fluid technology — developed jointly with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory — to provide superior drug coatings, which are intended to slowly emanate from the stent mesh in order to suppress scar-tissue growth that can re-block an artery. Current drug-coated stents appear effective at preventing scar tissue in the short run, but have also raised worries that they might increase the risk of dangerous blood clots over time.

Micell claims that its technology may make possible entirely new drug coatings on stents and other devices that may prevent such problems. In April, the company presented data on stents coated with heparin, a blood thinner, and sirolimus, an immune suppressant.

Today, Micell raised $7 million in what, despite its long history, it is calling a first funding round, according to VentureWire. Invemed Catalyst Fund and the GE Pension Plan provided the cash. Prior to a recapitalization a few years ago, the company had raised $60 million, VentureWire reported. Micell figures that the latest funding will last it a year, enough to produce some laboratory-animal data on the effectiveness of its coated stents.