VentureBeat

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

• Cantimer takes in $2M for dehydration diagnostics (VentureWire)
• Recodagen launches, takes aim at cancer (release)
• Juniper Diagnostics spins out of ChemSensing (VentureWire)

Cantimer takes in $2M for dehydration diagnostics –The mystery of Menlo Park, Calif.-based Cantimer has resolved a bit. We wrote about this stealthy company back in December and reached the conclusion that the company was developing a particular type of nanosensor intended to identify water levels in human tissue.

Now VentureWire reports that Cantimer is doing just that, using a polymer-based sensor for measuring dehydration in saliva. The company plans to market the device in sports medicine and pediatric and elderly care as well as to hospitals and emergency rooms.

The startup also just raised $2 million in a first funding round. AWT Private Investments and angel investors provided the cash.

Recodagen launches, takes aim at cancer – Recodagen (no Web site), a newly launched Seattle biotech working on new cancer drugs, raised an undisclosed sum in a first funding round. The sum falls in the $2 million to $5 million range, according to John Cook’s blog.

Investors included Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Amgen Ventures, ARCH Venture Partners, OVP Venture Partners and WRF Capital.

Recodagen was incubated by Seattle’s Accelerator. The company’s technology originated at Washington State University.

Juniper Diagnostics spins out of ChemSensing with new funding– ChemSensing, a Champaign, Ill., developer of sensor arrays, is spinning out Juniper Diagnostics to commercialize its technology for detecting bacteria via breath, VentureWire reports. The new startup will launch with a multi-million-dollar funding round provided by Mariner Equity Management and ChemSensing.

Juniper’s technology involves panels of reactive dyes that change color in response to chemical exposure — in this case, to gases emitted by certain classes of bacteria in the breath of patients with tuberculosis or pneumonia. The company expects that FDA approval of the device may take 18 months to two years.

TODAY’S HEADLINES:

• Affinergy gets $3M in grants for biological “linkers” (release)
• Specialty pharma EUSA raises $50M, spends $23M for public biotech Cytogen (release)
• Calderome takes in $12M for cancer diagnostics (peHUB)
• Pulse Health raises $2M for handheld free-radical device (release)
  
• LifeMasters takes in $15M for wellness, disease-management programs (release)
• Dubai Techno Park launched $300MVC fund for life sciences, other sectors (release)

Affinergy gets $3M in grants for biological “linkers” – Affinergy, a Duke University spinout in Research Triangle Park, N.C., received grants worth more than $3 milllion to support development of biological “linker” molecules with potential uses in coatings for medical devices and the development of new therapeutics. The grants were awarded by the federal National Institutes of Health through its small-business innovation research program.

The startup is developing biological molecules that can selectively bind various substances to particular surfaces. Such linkage molecules could, for instance, attach healing growth factors to surgical meshes or other implanted biomaterials or help target drugs at particular cell-surface proteins. The company hasn’t described its goals in much detail, although it said one of the grants is for work aimed at accelerating a patient’s natural healing process.

Specialty pharma EUSA raises $50M, spends $23M for public biotech Cytogen – In today’s man-bites-dog news, the venture-backed specialty pharma EUSA Pharma agreed to acquire the publicly traded biotech Cytogen for $22.6 million. The EUSA release is here; Cytogen has its own release here.

In one sense, the news isn’t terribly surprising, as Cytogen effectively put itself up for sale last November when it announced it was “reviewing strategic alternatives.” The twist here is that EUSA is taking the biotech private — a sign of just how far Cytogen’s fortunes have fallen since the heady days of the 1999-2000 biotech bubble, when its stock almost touched $200 a share. EUSA, which has offices in Doylestown, Pa., and Oxford, England, is offering 62 cents a share, a 35 percent premium over Cytogen’s closing price yesterday of 46 cents.

On the business front, however, it’s hard to say that the combination will be much more exciting than either company has been individually. Both EUSA and Cytogen traffic in a range of largely unrelated drugs for pain and cancer treatment.

EUSA raised $50 million to finance the cash transaction, for working capital and to restructure Cytogen. Investors included TVM Capital, Essex Woodlands, 3i, Goldman Sachs, Advent Venture Partners, SV Life Sciences, NeoMed and NovaQuest.

Calderome takes in $12M for cancer diagnostics – Calderome (no Web site), a South San Francisco, Calif., developer of cancer diagnostics, has taken in $11.9 million of a $23 million first funding round, peHUB reports. (peHUB identifies the company as located in Menlo Park, Calif., but two Calderome job postings on Biospace indicate its headquarters are actually in South San Francisco.)

In fact, I’m loving job listings at the moment, because the company also advertised one of those positions on Craigslist here. According to that listing:

Calderome, Inc. is an early stage cancer diagnostics company addressing the emerging opportunities in personalized medicine. The Company’s strategic vision is to develop a novel molecular cytology approach to improve the diagnosis of cancer, saving patients thousands of unnecessary surgeries every year. The company has spent the last year validating its business model with key stakeholders: physicians, patients and payers and has recently closed a significant round of private equity financing with premier venture capital investors….

In other words, it sounds very much like the company is developing a cell-based diagnostic, possibly involving a test that can pick up tumor cells that circulate in the bloodstream, that can help diagnose cancer without the need for invasive biopsies. That’s merely speculation, however.

Investors in the round include Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, TPG Biotechnology Partners and Versant Ventures.

(UPDATED: See below.)

Another one bites the dust.

The saga of Precision Therapeutics, a Pittsburgh biotech developing what struck me last August as a particularly crude type of cancer-chemotherapy diagnostic, continues apace. In a tersely worded press release, the special-purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, Oracle Healthcare Acquisition said it has terminated its planned merger with Precision. The release blamed “currently prevailing market conditions” for the decision, which carries some fairly ominous consequences for both sides.

Oracle’s plight is fairly simple: The blank-check company will now dissolve itself and return the money it raised, minus expenses, to investors. For Precision, however, the outlook is much starker. The merger would not only have taken the company public, it would have left Precision with $120 million in cash, ample resources to bolster sales of its ChemoFx test and to develop new potential products.

Now, after getting jilted at the altar by Oracle and withdrawing its IPO, the startup is most likely almost out of cash. As of September 30, Precision had only $15.6 million in cash and cash equivalents and a working-capital deficit of $1.1 million against debts of $17 million — plus a burn rate of roughly $3 million a quarter. Those numbers don’t look good by any measure

The first real sign the merger was in trouble came just about two weeks ago, when Oracle and Precision effectively cut the overall size of the deal by 15 percent — never a good sign. Oracle’s decision to walk away remains murky to me given the complexity of the deal, and external market events might have somehow triggered provisions that made the acquisition untenable. But I can’t help wondering if the buyers may have simply concluded that Precision’s prospects weren’t at all what they once thought.

For more on these special-purpose acquisition outfits and their adventures in life science, see our coverage here.

UPDATE: Tom Salemi at the In Vivo blog has more:

A majority of the investors who buy into the SPAC through an initial public offering must approve of the merger. In deciding how to vote, investors must weigh whether or not they’d be better off cashing out now rather than letting their bets ride on a company like Precision Therapeutics.

In fact, according to Oracle’s annual filing, any shareholder that voted against the merger stood to receive roughly $8 for each of their shares if they were outvoted and the deal went through. To us, the question would appear to be simple. Were investors better off taking the $8 for their share or rolling the dice with shares in the new Precision Therapeutics shares?

Given the recent performance of IPOs, IN VIVO Blog is guessing the $8 was looking pretty good to Oracle investors.

TODAY’S HEADLINES:

• Precision Thera merger with “blank check” Oracle Healthcare collapses (release)
• Sleep Solutions takes in $21M for sleep-apnea diagnostics (release)
• Trevena takes in $24M for drugs targeting G-proteins (release)
• “Specialty biotech” PanGenetics gets €23M for antibody drugs (release)
• Cancer-drug maker Unibioscreen pulls in €5M (release)
• Danish contract manufacturer CMC Biologics raises new funding (PDF release)
• Healthcare investor EDF Ventures postpones fourth fund (VentureWire)
• Global TB-drug alliance names former Sanofi-Aventis exec Jerome Premmeurer as CEO (release)
• Liquidia Tech names Neal Fowler as CEO (release)

(NOTE: Sorry for the minimal posting yesterday — I was at the Health 2.0 conference with extremely limited Internet connectivity. Normal posting resumes today.)

Precision Thera merger with “blank check” Oracle Healthcare collapses – This item is now a standalone post here.

Sleep Solutions takes in $21M for sleep-apnea diagnostics – Sleep Solutions, a Pasadena, Md., developer of diagnostic devices for sleep apnea, raised $20.5 million in a new funding round. Investors included TPG Biotechnology, MedVenture Associates, Emergent Ventures and Lava Ventures.

Sleep Solutions has developed a home-use diagnostic device for identifying sleep apnea, which are breathing difficulties during sleep. Diagnosing apnea has traditionally required patients to spend the night in a sleep laboratory. Left untreated, apnea can increase the risk of more serious problems, including stroke and heart attack.

Trevena takes in $24M for drugs targeting G-proteins – Trevena (no Web site), a Berwyn, Penn., biotech focused on a new area of drug discovery, raised $24 million in a first funding round. Investors included Alta Partners, Healthcare Ventures, New Enterprise Associates and Polaris Venture Partners.

Like many biotechs, Trevena plans to develop drugs that attack a particular biological mechanism rather than any particular disease. In this case, the company is targeting a class of proteins known as G-protein coupled receptors, or GPCR, which according to the company are affected by close to 40 percent of all drugs on the market today. The company didn’t describe its plans in any detail.

Healthcare investor EDF Ventures postpones fourth fund – EDF Ventures, an Ann Arbor, Mich., VC firm specializing in early-stage healthcare, has delayed a planned fourth fund, VentureWire reports. The postponement is related to the departure last year of managing director Beau Lasky, who left for Steamboat Ventures.

The firm intends to begin talking to potential investors again in several months. EDF didn’t say how much it hopes to raise in the new fund; its third fund closed in 2005 with $55 million in commitments.

TODAY’S HEADLINES:

• RNAi developer PhaseRx gets $4M of a pledged $19M (Seattle Times)
• TyRx Pharma, drug-device combo maker, raises $25M (release)
• Agennix aims at $40M for cancer drugs (VentureWire)
• Starr Life Sciences goes after $1.6M for small-animal vital-signs scanner (VW)
• CardioNet sets IPO terms, aims to raise $96M (IPOhome)

RNAi developer PhaseRx gets $4M of a pledged $19M – Investor interest in RNA interference, an ancient cellular mechanism for silencing dangerous genes, continues apace. PhaseRx, a Seattle biotech, has raised $4 million of a pledged $19 million first funding round, the Seattle Times reports.

Investors included ARCH Venture Partners, 5AM Ventures and Versant Ventures. PhaseRx will draw down the rest of the cash as it achieves various milestones.

The company seems to have neither a Web site nor a press release, and the newspaper story isn’t particularly illuminating on the subject of what PhaseRx intends to do. This Seattle Post-Intelligencer article has more details, however; apparently PhaseRx plans to use some form of synthetic polymer to help RNAi molecules cross into cells. (It’s unclear whether the polymer would also help stabilize RNAi molecules, which are fragile and prone to disintegrate before reaching their targets.)

TyRx Pharma, drug-device combo maker, raises $25M – Monmouth Junction, N.J., medical device maker TyRx Pharma raised $25 million in a new financing round. Investors included Clarus Ventures and Pappas Ventures.

TyRx focuses on implantable polymer-mesh bags meshes that have been coated with drugs of some kind. Its first product, the succinctly named AIGISrx CRMD Anti-Bacterial Envelope contains two antibiotics and is intended as an enclosure for implantable defibrillators designed to prevent infection. (UPDATE: The AEGISrx is actually the company’s most recent product. It also sells the Pivit, a similar polymer-mesh pouch for hernia surgeries. Also, the current financing round is the company’s fifth, according to VentureWire.)

Agennix aims at $40M for cancer drugs – Houston’s Agennix, a biotech developing drugs for cancer and other conditions, hopes to raise $40 million in a late-stage round to fund clinical trials, VentureWire reports. The company hopes to close the round by mid-year. Agennix is developing a bioengineered version of a human protein called talactoferrin that plays an important role in regulating the immune system. Agennix plans to use the funding to fund two late-stage, phase III trials of the drug in lung cancer.

CardioNet sets IPO terms, aims to raise $96M – San Diego’s CardioNet, a maker of wireless cardiac-monitoring devices that hopes to buck the recent trend of IPO collapses, set terms of its proposed IPO and now hopes to raise as much as $95.8 million.

The overall IPO, however, would be much larger — as large as $182.2 million, in fact — because existing CardioNet investors plan to sell more shares than the company itself. While there’s certainly precedent for this sort of thing — Masimo, another Southern California diagnostic-equipment maker, raised nearly a quarter of a million dollars in its IPO last August, the vast majority of which went to selling shareholders, conditions now are far worse than they were six months ago.

CardioNet plans to price its shares between $22 and $24 apiece. Its IPO, it turns out, is part of a complex financial arrangement whereby its last round of funding — $110 million raised last spring — didn’t put a valuation on the company. Instead, those investors received a promise of common stock in the form of shares that convert on the eve of the IPO. The down side here is that if the IPO doesn’t go well, those investors may be hosed. See here for more details.

TODAY’S HEADLINES:

• InSound Medical raises $11M for “invisible” hearing aids (VBLS exclusive)
• Corventis takes in $20M for heart-failure therapy (VBLS exclusive)
• Molecular diagnostics user AssureRx raises $1M (Cincinnati Enquirer)
• Arresto Biosciences, cancer-drug developer, raises funds (VentureWire)
• San Diego’s Obalon raises $4.7M for drug discovery (peHUB)

InSound Medical raises $11M for “invisible” hearing aids – This item is a standalone post here.

Corventis takes in $20M for heart-failure therapy – San Jose, Calif.-based Corventis, a startup working on ways to monitor the vital signs of heart-failure patients, raised $19.9 million in a second funding round, according to Dana Mead, a Corventis board member and VC at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Investors in the round included Kleiner Perkins, Mohr Davidow Ventures and DAG Ventures, Mead said.

Mead declined to further describe Corventis, which remains in stealth mode. The startup, however, is sponsoring a clinical trial (see its registration in the federal clinical-trials database) in which it intends to monitor heart-failure patients with some kind of “multi-sensor” device it calls the MUSE Clinical System.

While MUSE isn’t described in detail, it appears to be a non-invasive monitor of some kind designed to measure various aspects of the heart’s function, presumably including ejection fraction (a measure of how well the heart is pumping blood) and blood pressure within the heart, two measures that generally require doctors to thread sensors through a patient’s veins into the heart itself. The Corventis trial isn’t yet enrolling patients. (UPDATE: In a subsequent email, Mead said the trial has begun enrolling patients.)

Molecular diagnostics user AssureRx raises $1M – AssureRx, a Mason, Ohio, startup working on new molecular diagnostics for personalized medicine, raised more than $1 million in new funding, the Cincinnati Enquirer reports. The Health Foundation of Greater Cincinnati, the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, Blue Chip Venture Co., CincyTech USA and several individual investors provided the funding.

AssureRx is developing a new test licensed from Children’s Hospital and the Mayo Clinic intended to help doctors determine the best doses of antidepressants and other drugs for individual patients. The Enquirer story didn’t go into much detail, but it sounds as though the company may be measuring variation in genes that influence how quickly the body breaks down, or metabolizes, drugs, such as cytochrome P450.

UPDATE: Belatedly — as in a full week later — AssureRx put out this release on the funding. The only additional news seems to be that the startup’s tests look at several genes, not just one.

Arresto Biosciences, cancer-drug developer, raises funds – Arresto BioSciences, a Palo Alto, Calif., biotech developing a new class of cancer drugs, has raised an undisclosed sum in two funding rounds since last May, VentureWire reports. Investors included Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and HealthCare Ventures.

Arresto is developing drugs that attack the “extracellular matrix,” a tissue layer that provides structural support to cells. Under certain conditions, changes in the extracellular matrix appear to play a role in the development of cancer, as well as “fibrotic” disease such as cirrhosis and pulmonary fibrosis.

San Diego’s Obalon raises $4.7M for drug discovery – Obalon, a stealthy San Diego drug developer, raised $4.7 million of an anticipated $7.7 million first funding round, peHUB reports. Investors included Domain Associates, Okapi Ventures and Phagia Technology.

TODAY’S HEADLINES:

• PEAK Surgical takes in $21M for electrosurgical tools (release)
• CellGate acquired by Australian cancer biotech ProGen for $2.5M (release)
• Traversa raises $2M for RNAi-delivery technologies (release)
• RemitDATA, Web-based healthcare-service co., takes in $5.5M (bizjournals.com)
• Spinal-implant maker Archus Orthopedics gets $10M venture loan (release)
• Promedior pulls down another $5.5M for fibrotic disease (release)
• Acrongenomics takes 11 percent stake in Molecular Vision (release)
• Hepatitis drug-developer Biolex withdraws IPO (IPO Home)
• Employee drug screener eScreen gets Carlyle investment (release)
• NovaMin raises $2.5M for dental-care products (VentureWire)
• Cardious receives $1.5M for heart-valve repair (VW)
• PE-backed Spire Healthcare buys PE-backed Classic Hospitals for £145M (FT)
• Aberdare Ventures promotes two principals to partner (release)

CellGate acquired by Australian cancer biotech ProGen for $2.5M –CellGate, a Redwood City, Calif., biotech working on new cancer drugs, sold itself to ProGen, an Australian biotech also focused on cancer, for the equivalent of about $2.5 million. The release is here. Needless to say, this represents a fire sale for a biotech that seems to have run out of time.

CellGate was pursuing drugs that aimed to shut down the growth of cancer cells either by inhibiting polyamine or by “turning down” the activity of cancer-related genes. ProGen will conduct an 18-month assessment of CellGate’s first drug candidate, a polyamine inhibitor that had already completed an early stage, phase I clinical trial, before deciding upon a mid-stage, phase II program. ProGen will also evaluate a stable of CellGate’s preclinical drug candidates.

ProGen will issue shares worth $1.5 million for CellGate’s assets, and will assume net liabilities of roughly another $1 million. The sale represents a significant loss for CellGate’s investors, including Healthcare ventures and New Enterprise Associates, who as recently as 2002 put $10 million into the company in a fourth funding round. I haven’t been able to piece together how much CellGate raised over its lifetime, although it’s certainly considerably more than that $10 million.

Traversa raises $2M for RNAi-delivery technologies – Traversa Therapeutics, a La Jolla, Calif., biotech working on ways to deliver RNA-based drugs to their cellular targets, raised $2 million in a first financing round. Investors included San Diego Tech Coast Angels, Mesa Verde Venture Partners and Morningside Group.

Traversa’s work is intimately involved with RNA interference, a newly discovered technique for “silencing” disease-related genes using short strands of RNA that trigger a natural cellular mechanism for shutting down genes. Getting those short RNA molecules into cells in the first place, however, isn’t particularly easy.

Traversa claims to have solved that problem, although it doesn’t appear to be saying how. The company will license its RNA-delivery approach to drug companies, and also offers it for use as a drug-screening technology.

RemitDATA, Web-based healthcare-service co., takes in $5M – Memphis, Tenn.-based RemitDATA, a provider of Web-based healthcare-data services, raised $5 million in a new funding round.Noro-Moseley Partners and SSM Partners provided the funding.

RemitDATA offers Web-based tools for individual physician practices designed to help them track insurance and Medicare reimbursements and scan paper records into digital form. The company also makes a sales-management tool for the homecare industry.

Promedior pulls down another $5.5M for fibrotic disease – Promedior, a Malvern, Pa., biotech focused on fibrotic disease, raised an additional $5.5 million as an extension to its first funding round. Polaris Venture Partners, Morgenthaler Ventures, HealthCare Ventures and Easton Capital participated in the financing.

Fibrotic disease is a general name for conditions that entail repeated bouts of inflammation followed by scarring that, over time, can lead to organ failure. Examples include heart failure, cirrhosis and kidney failure. Promedior aims to develop drugs that can slow or reverse the scarring process, and intends to begin clinical trials of its first drug candidate this year. The company previously raised $7 million in its first funding round.

Acrongenomics takes 11 percent stake in Molecular Vision – Acrongenomics, a Swiss company that acquires and develops life-sciences technology, took a 10.5 percent stake in Molecular Vision, a developer of credit-card sized diagnostic devices. Acrongenomics had previously announced its intent to acquire Molecular Vision, so presumably this is the first step in that plan. The release is here.

Hepatitis drug-developer Biolex withdraws IPO – Biolex Therapeutics, a Pittsboro, N.C., biotech developing ways to manufacture protein drugs in an aquatic-plant system, withdrew its planned $70 million IPO. We previously covered Biolex and its IPO dreams here.

NovaMin raises $2.5M for dental-care products – NovaMin, an Alachua, Fla., company working on tooth-remineralization products, raised $2.5 million in a third round of funding and expects another $2.5 million, VentureWire reports. Intersouth Partners provided the financing.

Cardious aims at $1.5M for heart-valve repair – Cardious, a Northfield, Minn., medical-device company working on a heart-valve bypass device, is raising $1.5 million in a first funding round, VentureWire reports. The company aims to raise the funds from angel investors. Cardious is developing an aortic-valve replacement that can be put in place on a beating heart, rerouting blood flow around the damaged valve.

TODAY’S HEADLINES:

• Health-info site HealthCentral Network pulls in $50M (paidContent)
• BrightHeart Vet corrals $29M to acquire animal hospitals (release)
• AviaraDx raises $8M for cancer diagnostics (peHUB)
• Valor Medical aims for $15M for brain-aneurysm treatment (VentureWire)
• IPC, inpatient-care provider, raises as much as $56M in IPO (IPO Home)
• Phenomix, diabetes and hepatitis drug maker, files for $86M IPO (Edgar)
• TVM Capital promotes Keiarasch “Kia” Parssanedjad to principal in life sciences (release)

BrightHeart Vet corrals $29M to acquire animal hospitals — BrightHeart Veterinary Centers, an Armonk, N.Y., operator of veterinary hospitals, raised $28.5 million in a funding round intended to further the chain’s expansion. Investors included LLR Partners and Caltius Mezzanine.

BrightHeart currently runs facilities in New York, Connecticut, Illinois and Alberta, Canada, two of which it acquired just last week. The company intends to continue growing via acquisition.

AviaraDx raises $8M for cancer diagnostics — AviaraDx, a Carlsbad, Calif., developer of molecular cancer diagnostics, raised $8 million in a first funding round, peHUB reports, citing a regulatory filing. AviaraDx was spun out of the former Arcturus Bioscience, whose other assets were mostly acquired by Molecular Devices in 2006.

AviaraDx sells tests that identify tumors by their molecular “fingerprints” and predice which breast-cancer tumors are most likely to recur following surgery. The company isn’t providing much detail on its future development plans.

Valor Medical aims for $15M for brain-aneurysm treatment — Valor Medical, a San Diego device maker developing a new polymer-based treatment for brain aneurysms, is seeking $15 million in a second funding round, VentureWire reports. The company’s Neucrylate is a substance designed for use as a “filler” in aneurysms, which are dangerous arterial swellings that can rupture unexpectedly. Valor intends to begin clinical testing this year.

Phenomix, diabetes and hepatitis drug maker, files for $86M IPO — San Diego-based Phenomix, a biotech developing new drugs for diabetes and hepatitis, filed to raise $86.3 million in an initial offering. The company aims to be a “fast follower” that develops new drugs that address biological mechanisms that have been “validated” by successful drugs elsewhere.

TODAY’S HEADLINES:

• Satoris gets $5M for Alzheimer’s test (VentureWire)
• Endotis Pharma pulls in €25M for clot-busting and cancer drugs (release)
• Germany’s Direvo Biotech strikes drug-development pact with MedImmune (release)
• OrthoAccel gets $1.3M for device to speed orthodonture (VW)
• Medical-management software co. Accuro Healthcare files for $144M IPO (Edgar)
• Psilos Group raises more than $250M in third life-science fund (VW)
• Softscope Medical Tech names John Schellhorn as CEO (release)

Endotis Pharma pulls in €25M for clot-busting and cancer drugs — Endotis Pharma, a French specialty pharma focused on drugs for treating blood clots and cancer, raised €25 million ($36.8 million) in a second funding round. Investors included the Wellcome Trust, Endeavour Vision, NIF SMBC Ventures and Sofinnova Partners.

Endotis specializes in complicated chemistry related to natural sugar molecules called glycans that attach to proteins in ways that alter their function. The startup is developing small, synthetic versions of these molecules designed to tackle and “defuse” disease-related proteins, such as clotting factors (which can lead to blood clots) and cancer-related molecules.

OrthoAccel gets $1.3M for device to speed orthodonture — Houston-based OrthoAccel, a dental-device maker developing a removable mouthpiece designed to speed the work of orthodontic braces, raised $1.3 million to begin clinical trials, VentureWire reports. The funding includes $500,000 in first-round cash from angel investors and $750,000 from the Texas Emerging Technology Fund that will convert into second-round financing later this year.

The OrthoAccel device, called Celerect, is similar to a mouthpiece or retainer, and works in conjunction with standard orthodontic braces. Wearing it for just 10 minute to 20 minutes a day is supposed to provide some sort of pulsating force that accelerates the process of reshaping bones. A company official claims that in animal models, the Celerect may speed tooth movement by 50 percent.

The company envisions marketing the device for adults, who are particularly self-conscious about wearing braces. The VentureWire story says the device may boost the cost of braces, currently around $5,000, by 40 percent to 50 percent.

TODAY’S HEADLINES:

• Autonomic Technologies raises $3M for neurostimulators (PE Hub)
• Canopy Financial raises $15M for outsourced healthcare management (release)
• Cancer-drug developer AmpliMed draws $5M (PE Hub)
• Caprotec Bioanalytics receives €6M for protein-analysis tech (release)
• ProtAffin draws additional €1.4M for anti-inflammatory drugs (release)
• Toxicology-services firm Bridge Labs takes in $18M (release)
• Dental-compound maker NovaMin takes in $2.2M (TechJournal South)
• Aushon Bio takes in $4M for microarrays (PE Hub)
• Treatment Online receives $750K for Web behavioral healthcare (PDF release)
• IPO the Hospitalist aims to raise $60M with IPO for inpatient care (Edgar)
• Clinical diagnostics maker Laboratory Partners pulls in $16M (VentureWire, sub req’d)
• SynDevRx targets $11M for cancer drugs (VW)

Autonomic Technologies raises $3M for neurostimulators — Menlo Park, Calif.-based Autonomic Technologies (no Web site), a medical device company developing some sort of neurostimulator, has raised $3 million of an intended $5 million first round of funding, PE Hub reports, citing a regulatory filing. Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers provided the cash, while the Cleveland Clinic is also listed as a shareholder.

The company appears to be pretty well stealthed, as so far I haven’t managed to turn up any telltale traces outside of this single report. Among other things, the Kleiner site, unsurprisingly, doesn’t even list Autonomic in its portfolio. One potential clue lies in the company’s name, as the phrase “autonomic technology” generally refers to software or a network that manages and corrects itself (IBM has been a big proponent of the idea, although it’s hard to tell from here if it’s classic IT hype or something real). So presumably the startup is pursuing neurostimulation that engages a “self-healing” response of some sort in the brain or central nervous system.

If anyone knows anything about what Autonomic is up to, feel free to give us a shout in comments or by email.

Cancer-drug developer AmpliMed draws $5M — Amplimed, a Tuscon, Ariz., biotech focused on cancer drugs, has raised $5 million of a planned $22 million third funding round, PE Hub reports, citing a regulatory filing. Investors included BioMed Venture Partners, Biotech Insight Ventures, Solstice Capital and Valley Ventures.

AmpliMed is working on a new type of chemotherapy drug — technically, a cytotoxic chemotherapy that targets all rapidly dividing cells in the body — that it claims may be substantially less toxic that most such drugs. The company’s lead candidate, which it calls Amplimexon, inhibits a compound called glutathione that appears to protect cancer cells from damage by “free oxygen” radicals, or single-atom oxygen ions that typically wreak havoc within cells. AmpliMed suggests that non-cancerous cells that also divide rapidly, such as those lining the gut, appear to weather the suppression of glutathione more hardily than tumor cells, which theoretically should accumulate loads of oxygen radicals and then self-destruct.

Amplimexon is currently in mid-stage human tests against pancreatic and skin cancer. The company also has two other cancer compounds in earlier stages of development.

Canopy Financial raises $15M for outsourced healthcare management — Canopy Financial, a San Francisco developer of healthcare information systems, raised $15 million in a first funding round. Granite Global Ventures provided the funding.

Canopy sells systems for managing “consumer-oriented” health plans such as health savings accounts or flexible spending accounts. These are plans that purport to reduce healthcare costs by making individuals “responsible” for their medical spending, in effect by requiring them to pay for doctor and hospital visits out of a pre-established and often tax-exempt account to which employers may or may not contribute.

Clinical diagnostics maker Laboratory Partners pulls in $16M — Palo Alto, Calif.-based Laboratory Partners (no Web site), a provider of diagnostic tests to hospitals and other healthcare providers, raised $16 million in a fourth funding round, VentureWire reports (subscription required). The company said the funding will allow it to pursue acquisitions in the field.

Investors in the round included Primus Capital Funds (which put up $10 million), Oxford Bioscience Partners, Chrysalis Ventures and Fort Washington Capital Partners Group. Lab Partners has previously raised $26 million in venture funding, VentureWire reports.

SynDevRx targets $11M for cancer drugs — SynDevRx, a Cambridge, Mass.-based biotech developing new cancer drugs, is looking to raise $11 million in a first funding round, VentureWire reports. The company is pursuing an anti-angiogenic compound — that is, a drug candidate intended to block the growth of new blood vessels in tumors — originally developed in the lab of Children’s Hospital researcher Judah Folkman.

SynDevRx, founded in 2007, says this family of compounds may also be useful in other disease, including age-related macular degeneration, endometriosis and fluid retention (edema). The funding will allow the company to move its lead candidate, Caplostatin, into clinical trials. The compound caused side effects in previous clinical trials, but has since been re-engineered in hopes of mitigating that toxicity.

Alder Biopharmaceuticals, a Bothell, Wash., developer of antibody drugs, raised $40 million in a third funding round. Investors included Delphi Ventures, TPG Biotech, Sevin Rosen Funds, Ventures West, H.I.G. Ventures, and WRF Capital.

Alder develops antibody-based drugs for inflammation and autoimmune disease. The company’s lead candidate, ALD518, is currently in clinical trials as a treatment for rheumatoid arthritis and cancer, although neither Alder’s Web site nor its statement disclose when the drug began human tests.

Alder’s work is also noticeable because it produces its antibodies in genetically modified yeast cells, a new manufacturing technique that the company claims is faster and cheaper than traditional genetic-engineering methods involving mammalian cells. Not only does production in yeast allow companies to sidestep the need for expensive patent licenses that cover traditional methods, Alder claims it can speed the development process to months from years, making it possible to evaluate a much wider range of antibody candidates.

Alder also claims that ALD518 is the first full-length functioning antibody to be made on an industrial scale in yeast. For an additional information on the merits of yeast-based antibody manufacture, see our previous coverage of Adimab, a startup developing its own yeast-production system for similar reasons. If you’re a technical-detail junkie, don’t miss the discussion in comments.

TODAY’S HEADLINES:

• Gelesis draws in $16M for obesity treatments (release)
• Tempo Pharma raises $8B for nanoparticle drugs (release)
• Calistoga Pharma receives additional $5M for cancer and inflammation drugs (release)
• Montreux Equity Partners closes $250M life-sciences fund (release)
• MTS Health Partners names Andrew Weisenfeld, Mark Epstein managing directors (release)
• T2 Biosystems names John McDonough as CEO (release)

Gelesis draws in $16M for obesity treatments — Gelesis, a stealthy Boston company working on “novel” obesity treatments, raised $16 million in a first funding round. Investors included Orbimed Advisors and existing investors.

According to this Boston Globe story, Gelesis is developing a capsule containing an undefined “substance” that would expand in the stomach once swallowed, creating a temporary sense of fullness. The substance, whatever it is, would later pass out of the body.

Tempo Pharma raises $8B for nanoparticle drugs — Cambridge, Mass.-based Tempo Pharmaceuticals, a biotech developing “nanoparticle” formulations for new and existing drugs, raised $8 million in a second funding round. Investors included Polaris Venture Partners, Venrock, Lux Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners, Alexandria Real Estate Equities and William Rastetter, the former chairman of Biogen Idec.

The funding is Tempo’s second in just seven months; last May, it raised $12.1 million in a first round. (See our coverage here.) Tempo says the round reflects a “significantly increased valuation.”

Like other nanoparticle-drug companies, Tempo aims to improve the safety and efficacy of existing drugs — here by packaging them together in tiny capsules that release two drugs sequentially, presumably maximizing their effectiveness while minimizing side effects. Other nanoparticle-based companies we’ve covered recently include Carigent Therapeutics (here) and Bind Biosciences (here).

Calistoga Pharma receives additional $5M for cancer and inflammation drugs — Seattle’s Calistoga Pharmaceuticals, a biotech focused on new cancer and inflammation drugs, raised an additional $5.2 million in its first funding round. That brings the total round to $26.2 million.

Current investors provided the new funds. Previous investors in the round included Frazier Healthcare Ventures, Alta Partners, Three Arch Partners, Amgen Ventures and Eli Lilly, according to this Fierce Biotech story.

Calistoga, which was spun out of Icos after its acquisition by Lilly, is developing drugs against a class of biochemical-signaling molecules known as phosphoinositide-3 kinase. It currently has two drug candidates in preclinical studies.

Montreux Equity Partners closes $250M life-sciences fund — The Menlo Park, Calif.-based VC firm Montreux Equity Partners closed a $250 million life-sciences fund. The firm said the fund exceeded a $200 million target.

Montreux said the fund has already invested in several pharmaceutical and medical-device startups, including Glaukos, Avantis Medical, Tobira Therapeutics and Sequel Pharmaceuticals. We previously noted their fundraising efforts here.

(UPDATE: The merger is dead.)

Pittsburgh’s Precision Therapeutics, a biotech working on diagnostics designed to identify the best chemotherapy for cancer patients, appears to have dropped its planned IPO and instead went public via a reverse merger with Oracle Healthcare Acquisition — a “blank check” acquisition firm that appears to be no relation of the database-software giant.

I was pretty hard on Precision when it filed its IPO, since its cancer diagnostic test not only struck me as fairly crude and simplistic, it also lacks compelling data suggesting that it should do much good. IPO investors apparently weren’t overly enthusiastic either, although for some reason the Oracle acquisition folks seem to have jumped at the opportunity.

Financial terms of the deal aren’t entirely clear, but the release notes that the combined company — which will retain the Precision name — will have $120 million in cash. That amounts to a substantial cash infusion, given that Precision reported only about $