Precision Thera merger with “blank check” firm Oracle Healthcare collapses
(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… Continue Reading
Life sciences briefing: Wednesday, March 5, 2008
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… Continue Reading
Life sciences briefing: Friday, Feb. 22, 2008
TODAY’S HEADLINES:
HemCon Medical acquires Alltracel Pharma (release)
Transoma Medical, implantable wireless device maker, withdraws its IPO (Edgar)
Oracle Healthcare cuts Precision Thera acquisition price by roughly 15 percent (release)
MedBillManager adopts change:healthcare name, aims for March 3 relaunch release
Another slow news day, as yesterday we covered most of the fundings other sites are writing about today. I’ll update if anything else crops up. In the meantime, feel free to check out yesterday’s briefing or any other items here.
HemCon… Continue Reading
Precision Thera drops IPO, goes public via reverse merger
(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… Continue Reading