VentureBeat

Featured companies: American Aerogel, Clinicient, Frazier Healthcare Ventures, Genome Diagnostics, RadPharm, RainDance Technologies, Vivacta

UPDATED: Expanded items on Vitae, RadPharm, Vivacta and Genome Diagnostics. Intelligent Bio-Systems is now covered in a standalone item here.

Vitae Pharma takes in $15M for blood pressure, diabetes drugs — Vitae Pharmaceuticals, a Fort Washington, Pa., biotech focused on new drugs for hypertension and metabolic disorders, raised $15 million in a fourth funding round, VentureWire reports (subscription required). Boehringer Ingelheim, which struck a major partnership with Vitae in mid-October (PDF link), provided the funding.

That partnership calls for the two companies to co-develop Vitae drug candidates that inhibit a protein called 11beta-HSD1, an enzyme that helps regulate the hormone cortisol. The drugs may be useful in treating diabetes, obesity and hypertension. B-I agreed to pay Vitae $36.5 million in cash, research funding and an at-the-time unspecified equity investment, as well as up to $300 million in potential milestone payments.

Vitae’s other major drug program involves compounds that inhibit the protein renin, which regulates blood pressure and vascular function. Renin inhibitors, which could be useful in treating hypertension, have been a white whale of sorts for the drug industry over the past 30 years (see, for instance, this somewhat technical discussion of the history here).

UK’s Vivacta draws in $12M for medical diagnostics — Vivacta, a U.K. medical-diagnostic company formerly known as PanOpSys, raised $12 million in a second funding round. Investors included AGF Private Equity, HBM BioVentures, Spark Ventures and Viking.

Vivacta is developing a fast, “point of care” diagnostic system intended to deliver laboratory-quality test readings from drawn blood in doctors’ offices or at a hospital bedside. The technology is based on a “piezoelectric” film coated with antibodies to particular blood proteins. Piezoelectric devices produce current when compressed, so theoretically this approach should allow a direct measurement of blood proteins by generating current proportional to the density of antibodies that capture any particular blood protein.

RadPharm gets $10M for medical-image reviews — RadPharm, a Princeton, N.J., provider of medical-image review services, raised $10 million in a second funding round. Investors include Siemens Venture Capital, Ampersand Ventures, Adams Street Partners and Tang Capital Management.

RadPharm essentially provides outsourced analysis of medical images ranging from CAT scans to X-rays for clinical trials, whose outcomes can hinge on the way those images are read and analyzed. Trials of cancer drugs, for instance, frequently look at whether tumors shrink, stabilize or grow, and determining that requires someone to look at actual patient X-rays or other images and decide what they actually show. RadPharm’s service provides “centralized, independent, blinded interpretation” of such scans.

Genome Diagnostics, cancer-test maker, aims for $1.6M — Genome Diagnostics, a Pasadena, Calif., developer of cancer diagnostic tests, has raised several hundred thousand dollars toward an anticipated $1.6 million first funding round, VentureWire reports. B.C. Capital of Israel and several individual investors provided the funds.

According to VentureWire, the company aims to produce a diagnostic test for prostate cancer based upon gene variations detected by sequencing a patient’s entire genome. That sounds unlikely on several levels, the first of which is that “whole-genome sequencing” — VentureWire’s description of what the company is doing — is still incredibly expensive, with an estimated cost of $100,000 or more.

It seems far more likely that the company will do a rough-and-ready genome scan that samples only several hundred thousand of the genome’s three billion DNA “letters” that are known to vary between individuals — at least, that is, unless Genome Diagnostics is betting that the cost of whole-genome sequencing will drop to the fabled $1,000 or so by the time it gets its product to market. And maybe that’s exactly what the company is doing, although that would mean that its initial testing costs are going to be extraordinarily high.

It’s also far from clear exactly what sort of prognostic information the company hopes to obtain from a genome scan of either type, since most genetic-association studies can only show increases or decreases in the probability of disease, and with such a margin of error that it’s difficult to see how that information could possibly serve a diagnostic purpose. I’ll try to circle back to the company in order to get a better idea of what they’re up to for a future post.

OTHER HEADLINES OF NOTE:

• Clinicient receives $5M for healthcare revenue-management software (release)
• Genome sequencer Intelligent Bio-Systems raises funding (VW)
• American Aerogel raises $3.2M for biopharma gels (VW)
• Frazier Healthcare Ventures raises $600M life-sciences fund (Seattle P-I)
• RainDance Technologies appoints Christopher McNary as CEO (release)

Featured companies: Abiant, CellXplore, Diffusion Pharmaceuticals, WMR Biomedical, Zosano Pharmaceuticals

Diffusion Pharma raises $4.5M for vascular-disease and brain-cancer drug — Charlottesville, Va.-based Diffusion Pharmaceuticals, a biotech focused on drugs that enhance oxygen diffusion, raised $4.5 million in a private placement. Angel investors provided the funding, which brings Diffusion’s take to $10.2 million in equity and $2.6 million in government R&D grants.

Diffusion’s lead drug candidate — trans sodium crocetinate, or TSC — is designed to increase oxygen levels in otherwise oxygen-starved tissues. The drug just completed an early-stage clinical trial for safety, and will move on to mid-stage trials in two conditions: peripheral vascular disease and brain cancer.

Abiant draws $600K for advanced bio-imaging — Chicago’s Abiant, a device company now developing image-processing methods and software to speed the process of drug development, raised $600,000 in a private placement. Heartland Angels, Kettering Medical Center, and other investors provided the funding.

CellXplore raises $500,000 for breast-cancer diagnostics — CellXplore, a New Brunswick, N.J., biotech working on blood proteins that indicate early signs of cancer, raised $500,000 in new funding. Foundation Venture Capital Group provided the cash. The company has identified several “biomarkers” found in blood that it believes may not only identify the disease, but help oncologists assess different types and stages of cancer.

Heart- and eye-device maker WMR Biomedical assembles $13.1M — Cambridge, Mass.-based WMR Biomedical (no Web site, apparently), a developer of medical devices for cardiology and ophthalmology, raised $13.1 million in a second funding round, PE Hub reports, citing a regulatory filing. Investors included Intersouth Partners, North Bridge Venture Partners and Polaris Venture Partners. Although WMR remains largely tight-lipped about its intentions, this page on the Massachusetts Biotechnology Industry Directory site suggests it has a pretty illustrious scientific pedigree, as its founders include Harvard chemist George Whitesides and MIT’s Bob Langer.

Macroflux changes name to Zosano Pharma — There isn’t a whole lot more to say about this, actually, although the company put out a full release about it. Zosano is based in Fremont, Calif., and develops needle-free “transdermal” patches that use drug-coated “microprojections” — each about 200 microns long — to penetrate the outer layer of skin. Since the main difference between a microprojection and a needle seems to be whether the pointy object actually injects a drug or not — something of an academic distinction to anyone on the receiving end, I suspect — it’s not entirely clear to me what sort of advantage this system may have over competing needle-free approaches, such as that of Stratagent, which recently merged with Corium (our coverage in the first item here).