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TODAY’S HEADLINES:

• Stent maker IDev Tech raises $25M (VentureWire)
• Xytis gets $15M for brain-injury drugs (VentureWire)
• Diagnostic maker Iris Biotech plans to go public, launch breast-cancer test (Edgar)
• RiverVest Venture Partners raises $75M life-science fund (release)
• Concentric Medical names Maria Sainz CEO (release)

[Note: I'm a little sad to announce that this will be my last life-science briefing at VentureBeat, although with luck, it won't be the end of my time here. Starting Monday, I'll be blogging regularly on the drug industry and healthcare over at BNET Industries, a new CNET venture, so drop by if you can. (Preparing for that move is the main reason non-briefing posts have been scarce recently.) I still hope to post here occasionally as well, since covering below-the-radar startups has been a blast, and I'm not ready to give it up quite yet.

It's been a great year -- my first VentureBeat post was on April 3, 2007 -- and I want to thank Matt for the opportunity to join you here, and all our regular readers and commenters for your time and your insights. As journalists, we're only as good as our sources and readers, and you guys have helped in countless ways to make me look much smarter than I really am. --D.P.H.]

Stent maker IDev Tech raises $25M – IDev Technologies, a Houston medical-device startup, raised $25 million in a third funding round, VentureWire reports. The company is developing a new type of stent for use in propping open the liver’s bile ducts .

The company’s existing investors, a group that includes Bay City Capital, Heron Capital, PTB Sciences and RiverVest Venture Partners, provided the funding. IDev had previously raised $24 million, according to VW.

Xytis gets $15M for brain-injury drugs – Irvine, Calif.-based Xytis, a biotech focused on disorders of the central nervous system, raised $15 million in an extension of its second funding round, VentureWire reports. Its backers included Atlas Venture, CDC Innovation, Sanderling Ventures and Ventech.

The company says it was founded in 2005 from the merger of Xytis Pharmaceuticals and Remergent. (Sounds more to me like Xytis swallowed Remergent, but they’re free to describe it however they’d like.) Its lead drug candidate, XY2405, blocks a cellular protein called the Bradykinin B2 receptor, a signaling molecule thought to promote inflammation.

Xytis is testing the drug as a potential treatment for traumatic brain injury; the molecule is currently in mid-stage, phase II trials. The company is also testing an antidepressant in early-stage trials.

Xytis raised half the money last August, then received the second $7.5 million in April, the company told VentureWire. It has previously raised $24.5 million in its current incarnation, and its “predecessor companies” pulled in $6.5 million.

Diagnostic maker Iris Biotech plans to go public, launch breast-cancer test – Santa Clara, Calif.-based Iris Biotechnologies, a developer of molecular diagnostic tests, is preparing to go public, VentureWire reports. The company plans a small offering on the OTC Bulletin Board — if I’m reading its latest SEC filing correctly, its existing shareholders will raise about $1.1 million, with no proceeds headed to the company  — and hopes to launch a breast-cancer test later this year.

Iris plans to use chips to measure gene activity in breast cancer, with the hope of predicting the odds that a surgically removed tumor will recur and, eventually, helping patients and doctors customize cancer treatment from an early stage. The company claims that it will be competitive with Genomic Health and Agendia, two companies with similar tests for predicting breast-cancer recurrence.

There’s something a little odd about Iris’ disclosures in the SEC forms, though. Iris doesn’t describe its technology, the genes it will test or how it settled on them in any detail, and spends almost as much time talking about its database of patient information and related computer technology as it does about its tests. While it may consider some or all of that information a trade secret — and disclosure requirements may well be looser for such a small offering — it’s still kind of unusual for a startup to ask outside investors to put up their money essentially on faith.

TODAY’S HEADLINES:

• Stemline Therapeutics, cancer stem-cell startup, gets $13M (release)
• Eye-disease biotech Potentia Pharma raises $12M (release)
• Sample-prep toolmaker Arcxis aims for $8M to $10M (VentureWire)
• Synvascular names Drew Hoffman as CEO (VentureWire)
• ArtusLabs gets $2.6M for life-science software and services (release)
• Cancer-drug maker Inotek loses CEO, Genentech partnership (release)
• GTESS, health-plan IT startup, names James Bradley CEO (release)
• Antibiotic developer Tetraphase Pharma names Guy MacDonald CEO (release)

Stemline Therapeutics, cancer stem-cell startup, gets $13M – New York-based Stemline Therapeutics, a biotech focused on new cancer treatments, raised $12.5 million in a funding round. Healthcare funds managed by Pequot Capital Management provided the funding.

Stemline is one of several companies that hope to attack cancer by taking aim at cancer “stem cells,” which are thought to give rise to tumors the same way embryonic stem cells develop into the body’s 200+ types of tissue. One theory holds that conventional cancer chemotherapy often fails because while it can kill huge numbers of tumor cells, it tends to miss the stem cells that can migrate through the body and spark metastatic tumor growth.

Stemline already has one experimental drug against acute myeloid leukemia in early stage clinical trials, although it licensed that drug from the Texas A&M Health Science Center rather than discovering the molecule itself. The startup reports eight other drug candidates at an earlier stage of development.

Stemline has so far been overshadowed by the much flashier OncoMed, another cancer stem-cell startup that  last December struck a partnership with GlaxoSmithKline potentially worth $1.4 billion. It’s not clear, though, whether OncoMed has actually begun clinical trials of its leading drug candidate yet.

Eye-disease biotech Potentia Pharma raises $12M – Potentia Pharmaceuticals, a Louisville, Ky., biotech focused on eye diseases of the elderly, raised $12 million in an unspecified funding round. Backers include HealthCare Ventures and MASA Life Science Ventures.

Potentia hopes to treat a blinding disorder known as age-related macular degeneration by reducing inflammation. Specifically, the startup’s lead drug candidate, POT-4, inhibits the complement system, an arm of the body’s immune defenses that may be responsible for much of the damage associated with AMD.

Sample-prep toolmaker Arcxis aims for $8M to $10M – Pleasanton, Calif.-based Arcxis Biotechnologies, a maker of systems that prepare biological samples for analysis, hopes to raise $8 million to $10 million in a second funding round, VentureWire reports. The company raised $6.5 million in its first funding round, which took place in three installments from August 2006 through February 2008.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this item incorrectly stated that Arcxis raised $11.1 million in February and wrongly attributed that fact to VentureWire. Arcxis CEO Howard Goldstein emailed me with the correct numbers.

TODAY’S HEADLINES:

• AGI Dermatics takes in $5M for skincare products (release)
• Myconostica raises £3.9 for fungal diagnostics (GenomeWeb)
  
• Germany’s Noxxon gets €1M grant for aptamer drugs (release)

AGI Dermatics takes in $5M for skincare products – Freeport, N.Y.-based AGI Dermatics, a startup concentrated on skincare products, raised $5 million in a new funding round. Investors included Trevi Health Ventures and Spring Mountain Capital.

AGI makes cosmetic ingredients and is working on developing topical pharmaceutical lotions as well. Its leading drug candidate is called T4N5 Liposome Lotion, which AGI says includes a DNA-repair enzyme intended to repair ultraviolet damage to the skin. The company is currently testing the product as a preventive treatment for skin cancer.

Germany’s Noxxon gets €1M grant for aptamer drugs — Noxxon, a German biotech aiming to make drugs from nucleic-acid snippets called aptamers, received a grant from Germany’s Federal Ministry of Education and Research. The €1 million ($1.6 million) grant is intended to support Noxxon’s drug-discovery program, which we covered at greater length last May.

Myconostica raises £3.9M for fungal diagostics – Myconostica, a U.K. biotech that spun out of the University of Manchester, raised £3.9 million ($7.7 million) in a third funding round, GenomeWeb reports. Investors included Amphion Innovations, Nexus Medical Partners, and Innoven Partenaires.

The company is working on rapid diagnostic tests for life-threatening fungal infections. Its first product is a test for several types of fungal infection that is nearing approval in Europe, and which Myconostica thinks could receive U.S. approval by the fourth quarter.

TODAY’S HEADLINES:

• Quark Pharma gets $27M for RNAi drugs (release)
• TargetRx takes in $9.6M for physician-prescribing data (release)
• D-Pharm raises more than $3M for fat-like drugs (release)
  
• Vortex Medical raises $2.3M for medical devices (VentureWire)
• Specialty pharma Ascio takes in $3M (VentureWire)
• Keraderm gets $1.7M for antifungal drugs (VentureWire)
• Contract researcher CTMG raises $500K toward $1M round (VentureWire)
• Singapore’s Progeniq raises seed funding for life-science computing (release)
• Acrongenomics scuttles Molecular Vision acquisition (peHUB)
• Michael Gutch joins H.I.G. Ventures (release)

Quark Pharma gets $27M for RNAi drugs – Fremont, Calif.-based Quark Pharmaceuticals, a biotech startup working on “RNA interference” drugs, raised $27 million in an eighth funding round. The company’s fundraising follows a failed attempt to go public last year, and reflects a somewhat smaller haul than the $30 million it had hoped to raise.

The company’s backers include investment vehicles of SBI Asset Management and SBI Investment, both subsidiaries of Tokyo-based SBI Holding. The investment cements Quark’s deep relationship with Japan; its previous investors include two other Tokyo-based investment partnerships, the Trans-Science Global Bio-Technology Fund and Asuka DBJ Investment LPS, and the company has long worked with several Japanese pharmaceutical companies as well.

Quark’s work in RNAi — the use of short RNA molecules to “silence” disease-related genes — has already produced two drug candidates that are in clinical trials. One is being tested in the eye condition known as age-related macular degeneration by Pfizer; Quark is testing the other as a way to prevent acute kidney industry.

Danny Zurr, Quark’s CEO, said the startup will use the funding to greatly expand  its clinical-trial program. By the second half of this year, the company plans to have its drug candidates in five different tests at Quark and Pfizer. We’ve written a fair bit about Quark and its colorful history over the past year or so.

TargetRx takes in $9.6M for physician-prescribing data – TargetRx, a Horsham, Pa., startup that analyzes physician-prescribing behavior for drug companies, raised $9.6 million in a new funding round. Its backers include Quaker BioVentures, New Enterprise Associates and Domain Associates.

Target bills itself as a company capable of providing “unparalled insights” into the way doctors prescribe drugs — always a subject of great interest to pharmas of all stripes. In practice, Target appears to get its information by paying doctors to participate in online marketing programs held in a closed forum on its Web site.

The company claims that its methods provide useful predictive information about physician behavior. In certain respects, its approach isn’t all that different from Sermo, which has begun selling access to its online doctor forum to investors and pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer.

TODAY’S HEADLINES:

• IlluminOss Medical gets $11M for bone-fracture devices (peHUB)
• Contract researcher Crown Bioscience takes in funding (release)

IlluminOss Medical gets $11M for bone-fracture devices — East Providence, R.I.-based IlluminOss Medical, a medical-device startup, raised $11 million in a second funding round, peHUB reports. Backers included New Leaf Ventures and Foundation Medical Partners.

The company’s Web site is barely more than a stub that describes IlluminOss as a device company “pioneering new frontiers in orthopedic surgery.” peHUB offers the further tidbit that the company is developing a minimally invasive system for treating bone fractures.

We’ve previously covered Sonoma Orthopedics Products, a California firm with what may be a similar technology for treating fractures with an implant that supposedly speeds healing from inside the bone.

Contract researcher Crown Bioscience takes in funding – Crown Bioscience, a biology-services startup in Santa Clara, Calif., raised an undisclosed sum in a second funding round. Chemizon, a division of Optomagic, provided the cash.

Crown offers a variety of biology-based services, including protein characterization, drug-candidate discovery and assessment of anticancer drugs. In other words, it’s a contract-research organization, although it seems to have a wider range of offerings that many CROs do.

TODAY’S HEADLINES:

• Mirna Thera spins out of Asuragen with $3M (release)
• Stroke-therapy startup CoAxia raises $12M (release)
• Stealthy device maker Synvascular gets $6.5M (peHUB)
• AndroScience seeks $3.5M for anti-testosterone drugs (VentureWire)
• Austria’s ProtAffin takes in €1.1M grant (release)
• Singapore’s Moleac receives $3.5M for Chinese medicine (release)
• Alethia Bio gets C$2.4M for antibody drugs (release)
• Alba Thera names Bruce Peacock as CEO (release)
• SkinMedica names Mary Fisher as CEO (release)
  

Mirna Thera spins out of Asuragen with $3M – Mirna Therapeutics, a newly minted Austin, Tex., startup focused on “microRNA” (miRNA) drugs, spun out from its parent Asuragen with $3 million in seed capital. The new company is taking Asuragen’s miRNA intellectual property with it.

MicroRNAs, like small interfering RNAs (siRNAs, for those into the acronym soup here), are short stretches of nucleic acid that can silence the activity of particular genes. These miRNAs, however, are encoded in the human genome and appear to affect multiple genes at once by interfering with “master” regulatory genes. Several miRNAs have been linked to cancer, suggesting that measuring levels of miRNAs might yield early detection of tumors.

Asuragen will continue to explore miRNAs as possible diagnostic tools, while Mirna will look into developing particular miRNA molecules as cancer drugs. Mirna initially plans to target lung cancer, prostate cancer and acute myeloid leukemia. None of its drug candidates are ready for testing in humans yet.

Stroke-therapy startup CoAxia raises $12M –  Maple Grove, Minn.-based CoAxia, a device startup focused on treatment for clot-related strokes, raised $11.5 million as an extension of its third funding round. Its backers included existing investors Canaan Partners, Prism Venture Partners, Baird Venture Partners, Affinity Capital Management, Johnson and Johnson Development and SVB Capital Partners.

CoAxia is developing a catheter designed to increase the flow of oxygenated blood in the brains of stroke patients by restricting its flow to the lower extremities, thereby shunting additional blood into brain vessels that haven’t been blocked by a clot. The minimally invasive device is threaded into a central artery near the kidneys, where a doctor can inflate two balloons designed to block roughly 70 percent of the blood flow to the lower body. The device is currently in a late-stage clinical trial.

TODAY’S HEADLINES:

• ProGenTech takes in $21M for DNA purification systems (release)
• Diabetes-drug maker Phenomix raises $18M while seeking IPO (Edgar)
• Genome-tool maker BioTrove gets $23M in preparation for IPO (Edgar)
• Sweden’s DermaGen pulls in more than €1M for dermatitis (release)
• Digital health-record co. Medsphere receives $3M bridge (VentureWire)
• CareAnyware, healthcare IT provider, takes $2M in debt (release)
• Health B2B community CompareNetworks raises funding (release)
• ActivBiotics assets sold for $3.5M (release)
  

ProGenTech takes in $21M for DNA purification systems – ProGenTech, an “East-West” tool and equipment maker, raised $21 million in a third funding round. Investors included Bay City Capital of San Francisco and DT Capital of Shanghai.

ProGenTech makes purification systems that isolate DNA from blood or other biological samples for processing and analysis. The startup is based in Shanghai and Emeryville, Calif.

Diabetes-drug maker Phenomix raises $18M while seeking IPO – Phenomix, a San Diego biotech developing new diabetes drugs, raised a total of $73.3 million in its third funding round, according to a recent amendment to its IPO filing. VentureWire reports that the startup had raised $55 million as of March 2007, suggesting the company pulled in an additional $18.3 million since then.

Phenomix claims to be a “fast follower” in drug development, a company that aims to create better versions of drugs that take aim at biological mechanisms already proven to work by earlier drugs. Its leading drug candidate is an inhibitor of dipeptidyl peptidase-4, or DPP-4, an enzyme that plays a role in insulin production, for use in type 2 diabetes. The company is looking to raise $86.3 million in its IPO.

Genome-tool maker BioTrove gets $23M in preparation for IPO – BioTrove, a Woburn, Mass., biomedical equipment maker, raised $22.7 million in a third funding round just prior to filing for an IPO, according to its SEC registration statement. The funding was first reported by VentureWire.

The company makes tools and systems for DNA analysis and drug screening. It filed yesterday to raise $75 million in its initial offering. BioTrove’s backers in the latest fundraising included Catalyst Health and Technology Partners, CB Health Ventures, Vox Equity Partners, and Fletcher Spaght Ventures.

TODAY’S HEADLINES:

• VaxGen, Raven Bio terminate merger agreement (release)
• Aerovance gets $20M in venture debt for respiratory disease (release)
• EKOS raises $5M for ultrasound catheters (peHUB)
• Intelligent Bio-Systems draws $353K for high-speed genome sequencing (peHUB)
• Quintessence Bio takes in $5M for cancer-directed proteins (VentureWire)
• 7 Health Ventures adds three members to investment team (release)
• Contract manufacturer Cytovance names Darren Head CEO (release)

VaxGen, Raven Bio terminate merger agreement – A weirdly structured, always hard-to-understand merger between the failed vaccine biotech VaxGen and startup Raven Biotechnologies has collapsed. The two companies called off the combination after it became clear that a majority of VaxGen shareholders would reject it.

The deal aimed to create a new company out of VaxGen’s cash holdings and biomanufacturing facilities and Raven’s antibody-drug program, which remains at an early stage of development. The merger would also have given Raven a quick route to public listing of its stock. Both companies are located in South San Francisco, Calif.

But many VaxGen shareholders — in particular, the investment firm MedCap Management & Research, which waged a sharp effort to derail the deal — believed the deal undervalued VaxGen, which they figured would yield a better return to investors through liquidation. VaxGen, a once pioneering maker of experimental vaccines against HIV and anthrax that is now little more than an empty shell, said it would immediately assess its strategic alternatives, including possible liquidation.

Aerovance gets $20M in venture debt for respiratory disease – Aerovance, a Berkeley, Calif., developer of asthma and eczema drugs, took on $20 million of venture debt. The startup drew down $10 million of that sum at closing; the rest will become available once it achieves unspecified milestones.

A syndicate of lenders provided the funding, including Oxford Finance Corporation, Silicon Valley Bank and Comerica Bank. Aerovance, which spun out of Bayer Pharmaceuticals in 2004, said the funding would enable it to continue looking for a drug-company partner for its asthma drug and to pursue other “strategic goals.”

EKOS raises $5M for ultrasound catheters – EKOS, a Bothell, Wash., maker of ultrasound-enhanced drug-delivery systems, raised $5 million in new equity funding, peHUB reports, citing a regulatory filing. No investors were disclosed. As we wrote last June when the company raised $10 million in venture debt, EKOS makes catheters that use both drugs and ultrasound to break up blood clots.

Intelligent Bio-Systems draws $353K for high-speed genome sequencing – Waltham, Mass.-based Intelligent Bio-Systems raised $353,000 in a first funding round, peHUB reports, citing a regulatory filing. The company is developing next-generation DNA analysis systems and promises to deliver technology that can sequence a full human genome for just $5,000 in about 24 hours, as we described earlier.

TODAY’S HEADLINES:

• Breathe Tech raises $15M for respiratory disease (release)
• Protein-drug maker Pieris takes in €25M (release)
• Apthera takes in $2.1M toward cancer vaccine (VentureWire)

Breathe Tech raises $15M for respiratory disease – Breathe Technologies, a Fremont, Calif., medical device maker, raised $15 million in a second round of funding. Investors included Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Synergy Partners International, Delphi Ventures and Life Science Angels.

Breathe is developing “compact” and “lightweight” respiratory systems for the hospital and home markets, and estimates that annual sales of the devices its equipment could enhance or replace amount to $2 billion. The Breathe ventilators could be used by patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, cystic fibrosis, and other lung disorders.

Protein-drug maker Pieris takes in €25M – Pieris, a German biotech pursuing a new form of protein-based drug, raised €25 million ($38 million) in a second funding round. Investors included OrbiMed Advisors, Novo Nordisk, Global Life Science Ventures, Gilde Healthcare Partners and Forbion Capital Partners.

Pieris is the latest biotech to think it can improve on monoclonal antibodies as drug candidates by developing its own engineered protein structures. The startup calls its protein structures Anticalins — they’re derived from a class of human proteins called lipocalins — and says they’re smaller and simpler than monoclonals with similar power to selectively bind to particular molecular targets.

Pieris joins a number of other companies pursuing similar strategies, including Adnexus Therapeutics, which sold itself to Bristol-Myers Squibb for $430 million, and Molecular Partners, a Swiss biotech working on modular proteins it calls DARPins. Although these are all interesting ideas, none have yet proven themselves, and all have to address a potentially significant hurdle — the fact that none of these engineered proteins are likely to engage the immune system’s disease-fighting elements the way monoclonal antibodies often do.

Apthera takes in $2.1M toward cancer vaccine – Apthera, a Scottsdale, Ariz., biotech working on therapeutic cancer vaccines, raised $2.1 million of an expected $3.9 million second funding round, VentureWire reports. Investors included the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Blackmont Capital, Land Ventures and individuals.

Apthera is developing a vaccine intended to stimulate an immune response against breast-cancer cells. The startup plans to start a late-stage, phase III trial of the vaccine in the fourth quarter of this year, and hopes to raise another $10 million later this year to finance the test.

TODAY’S HEADLINES:

• Antibody-discovery startup Adimab raises new funding (release)
• Lung-device maker Spiration gets $19M (release)
• Sample-prep startup Protein Discovery pulls in $10M (release)
• Inogen takes in $13M for portable oxygen device (VentureWire)
• Healthcare IT concern Medaptus raises $11M for expansion (VentureWire)
• Contract lab Synexis raises $14M (peHUB)
• Medical-device VC firm BioStar Ventures takes in $24M of $80M fund (peHUB)
• Halsa Pharma gets $250K for “natural” obesity-control treatment (release)
• Diagnostics provider Lab21 acquires NPTech (peHUB)
• Galil Medical names Martin Emerson CEO (release)

Antibody-discovery startup Adimab raises new funding – Lebanon, N.H.-based Adimab, a biotech working on new ways to discover antibody drugs, has raised a second round of funding. The company didn’t disclose the size of the round.

Adimab, which raised $6 million last July, is one of several startups looking to design new antibody drugs in bioengineered yeast cells, as we wrote at the time. (Alder Biopharmaceuticals, which raised $40 million in January, is another.) The technique promises to be much faster — and freer of patent restrictions — than current methods. When Adimab completes its current manufacturing facility in the second quarter, it claims it will be able to produce a panel of human antibodies against a particular target in just 90 days, instead of the year or more traditional methods can require.

Investors included Polaris Venture Partners and SV Life Sciences, who also invested in the company’s first round.

Lung-device maker Spiration gets $19M – Spiration, a Redmond, Wash., medical-device startup, raised $18.5 million in a seventh funding round. Investors included Versant Ventures, Olympus Medical Systems, New Enterprise Associates, New Leaf Venture Partners, InterWest Partners, Investor Growth Capital and Three Arch Partners.

Spiration has now raised a total of $97 million. It is developing a set of one-way valves for emphysema that can be implanted in the lung’s airways via a minimally invasive procedure. These valves are designed to shunt air away from diseased portions of the lung and redirect it to healthier areas. The company said the funding would support commercialization of its device in Europe and to complete studies for regulatory approval in the U.S.

Other startups working on similar technology include Emphasys Medical, Pulmonx and Broncus Technologies.

Sample-prep startup Protein Discovery pulls in $10M – Knoxville, Tenn.-based Protein Discovery, a biotech with new laboratory technology for protein identification, raised $10 million in a third funding round. Investors included Santé Ventures, Memphis Biomed Ventures, the Southern Appalachian Fund, and the Nashville Capital Network.

The startup is developing technology that aims to “simplify” the process of preparing biological samples for protein analysis. The details are probably too much for anyone who’s not a lab technician themselves, but feel free to check out the company’s explanation if you dare.)

Inogen takes in $13M for portable oxygen device – Inogen, a Goleta, Calif., medical-device maker, raised $12.6 million in its fifth funding round, VentureWire reports. Investors included Accuitive Medical Ventures, Arboretum Ventures, Avalon Ventures, Novo A/S, Numenor Ventures and Versant Ventures.

The company makes and sells portable oxygen-delivery systems for patients suffering from a lung problem called chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. The product has been on the market for several years, and Inogen says it believes it might take several more before it’s in a position to be acquired or to go public.

TODAY’S HEADLINES:

• Paris-based Stentys takes $18M for “bifurcated” stents (release)
• Blood analyzer IntelliDx raises $22M (PDF release)
• Cancer-test biotech Calderome changes name to VeraCyte (VentureWire)
• Predictive Biosciences names Peter Klemm as CEO (release)

Paris-based Stentys takes $18M for “bifurcated” stents – Stentys, a Paris-based medical device maker, raised $18 million in a second funding round. The company is developing “bifurcated” stents intended to prop open clogged arteries at blood-vessel junctions.

The startup said the funding will allow it to complete clinical trials of its stents and to win European regulatory approval for them. Stentys doesn’t seem to have given any indication whether or when it might seek approval in the U.S. or other markets as well.

Scottish Equity Partners and Sofinnova Partners provided the funding.

Blood analyzer IntelliDx raises $22M –It’s starting to look like Diabetes Week here at VentureBeat LifeScience.

IntelliDx (no Web site), a Boston Santa Clara, Calif., startup with a new type of blood-sugar analyzer for hospitalized diabetics, raised $21.5 million in a fourth funding round (PDF link). Investors included HLM Venture Partners, 3i Ventures, Giza Ventures, Ascend Ventures, Aurum Ventures, Sequel Venture Partners and Hunt BioVentures.

IntelliDx makes a chemical sensor-based blood analyzer for use in hospital intensive-care units. Much like the Luminous Medical spectroscopic blood-glucose analyzer we covered yesterday, the IntelliDx device aims to monitor blood sugar hourly in diabetic patients. The idea, again, is to keep a closer eye on hyperglycemia in a critical-care setting, since runaway blood glucose often increases the chance of complications and lengthier hospital stays.

Cancer-test biotech Calderome changes name to VeraCyte – Calderome, a stealthy cancer-test startup in South San Francisco, has changed its name to VeraCyte (no Web site), VentureWire reports. The new name presumably reflects the company’s focus on cell-based cancer diagnostics, as we described last week.

The VentureWire story goes on to reprise VeraCyte’s $12 million fundraising, which we also covered last week. VeraCyte has two employees, and recently extended job offers to three other individuals, the news service reported.

CORRECTED: The IntelliDx item initially located the company in Boston, not Santa Clara. The company’s release was datelined Boston because it originated with HLM Ventures. Apologies for the error.

TODAY’S HEADLINES:

• Luminous Medical raises $24M for automated glucose monitoring (release)
• Alimera Sciences gets $30M for eye-disease drug (release)
• Vaccine maker LigoCyte draws $28M (release)
• Heartbeat tracker CardioNet trims IPO, aims for listing today (IPOhome)
• Axial Biotech takes in $6M for spinal diagnostics (release)
• Insulin bioengineer enGene receives $6.4M (release)
• GlucoLight raises funding for, well, glucose monitoring (release)
• Germany’s InflaRx gets seed funding for sepsis work (release)
• Cell imager Amnis pulls in $3.5M (VentureWire)
• Korea Bone Bank gets funding for bone transplants (release)

Luminous Medical raises $24M for automated glucose monitoring – Carlsbad, Calif.-based Luminous Medical, a medical-device maker, raised $23.5 million in a second funding round. Investors included Adams Street Partners, RiverVest Venture Partners, Finistere Ventures, De Novo Ventures and Latterell Venture Partners.

Luminous is developing an automated blood-sugar sensor for diabetic patients being treated in hospital intensive-care units and operating rooms. According to the company, keeping a tight rein on blood-glucose levels, which can soar or crash unexpectedly in diabetics, helps prevent complications while shortening hospital stays and reducing the risk of death.

Measuring such tight control, however, typically requires manually checking blood-glucose levels every 30 to 60 minutes, the company says. The Luminous device, by contrast, uses infrared spectroscopy — a technique that identifies particular molecules by measuring which wavelengths of light they absorb — to measure glucose and other blood chemicals non-invasively.

The company licensed its technology from InLight Solutions of Albuquerque, N.M., which previously invested $60 million in the technology. The device has not been approved by the FDA.

Axial Biotech takes in $6M for spinal diagnostics – Axial Biotech, a Salt Lake City diagnostic-test maker, raised $6 million as part of its second funding round. Investors included Johnson & Johnson Development, vSpring Capital and Ohio Biotech Group.

Axial, founded in 2002 by a group of spinal surgeons and geneticists, is an odd hybrid of biotech and devices. The company aims to produce tests that will predict and measure the severity of spinal problems such as scoliosis, as well as unspecified “motion-preserving technologies” — presumably an alternative to the stigmatizing back braces that orthopedists have long inflicted on children with the condition.

Insulin bioengineer enGene receives $6.4M – Canada’s enGene, a Vancouver biotech looking for ways to jump-start natural insulin production in diabetics, raised $6.4 million in a first round of funding. Investors included Saad Investments, Masa Life Science Ventures and private investors.

EnGene has an audacious — which is to say, of course, also quite chancy — approach to diabetes, in which the immune system attacks and kills insulin-producing “beta cells” in the pancreas (type 1 diabetes) or the body grows desensitized to insulin and requires higher levels (type 2 diabetes). In either case, patients often require insulin shots to maintain blood-sugar levels necessary or proper metabolism.

EnGene proposes to engineer cells in the small intestine — known as “K cells” — to produce insulin themselves. The advantage of this technique lies in the fact that K cells, like beta cells, respond to sugar levels in the gut, although they normally secrete a separate molecule. Once bioengineered to produce insulin as well, these cells could help regulate blood sugar automatically much the way beta cells normally do.

Of course, gene therapy has, in general, been a great disappointment so far, so there’s no shortage of uncertainty associated with this sort of technique. EnGene has tested its technique in mice, but not yet in humans. The startup plans to seek a second round of funding in the second half.

Alimera Sciences gets $30M for eye-disease drug – Alimera Sciences, an Alpharetta, Ga., drug developer with a focus on eye disease, raised $30 million in a third funding round. The company will now take a majority stake in its drug for diabetic macular edema, a vision-degrading complication of diabetes, which Alimera is developing with its partner pSividia.

We’ve written before about Alimera, which is presumably still contemplating an IPO this fall. All five of the company’s existing VC backers participated in the round: BA Venture Partners, Domain Associates, Intersouth Partners, Polaris Venture Partners and Venrock Associates.

Vaccine maker LigoCyte draws $28M – LigoCyte Pharmaceuticals, a Bozeman, Mont., biotech focused on new vaccines against infectious disease, raised $28 million in a third funding round. Investors included Forward Ventures, JAFCO, Novartis Venture Fund, Fidelity Biosciences, MedImmune Ventures, Athenian Venture Partners and MC Life Sciences Ventures.

The company is developing new vaccines using “virus-like particles” — usually structural viral proteins, minus the replication machinery packed in DNA or RNA — against gastroenteritis, anthrax and flu. It is also working on antibody drugs against inflammatory disease.