Life sciences briefing: Wednesday, Feb. 13, 2008
TODAY’S HEADLINES:
Molecular-diagnostics maker Atlas Genetics gets £2.1M (MS Word release)
One-man shop Paloma Pharma takes in $5M for eye, cancer drugs (VentureWire)
Israel’s Optimata receives $1.5M for simulations to rescue failed drugs (release)
Centrose raises $1.3M for sugar-modified drugs (Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel)
Halyard buys healthcare-compliance adviser HCPro from Riverside (release)
RiverRock Holdings acquires medical-billing software maker Dynamic Energy (release)
Maryland’s Sirnaomics gets $50K for RNAi (TechJournal South)
Molecular-diagnostics maker Atlas Genetics gets £2.1M – Atlas Genetics, a Bath, U.K., developer of molecular diagnostics, raised… Continue Reading
Life sciences briefing: Friday, Nov. 9, 2007
Featured companies: Antisense Pharma, Arteriocyte, Excelimmune, Fluxion Biosciences
UPDATED: Expanded items on Antisense Pharma, Arteriocyte, and Excelimmune.
Antisense Pharma raises €27M for cancer drugs — Munich’s Antisense Pharma, a biotech developing gene-silencing drugs against cancer, raised €27 million ($38 million) in a fourth funding round. The company’s PDF release is here.
MIG provided the funding, which the company said will support late-stage trials of its lead drug candidate, AP 12009, in brain cancer. AP 12009 is an “antisense” drug, one… Continue Reading
Life sciences briefing: Monday, Oct. 22, 2007
Featured companies: Ablynx, Avant Immunotherapeutics, BioForm Medical, Celldex Therapeutics, Genomas, High-Throughput Genomics, Orchid Cellmark, ReliaGene Technologies, SarCode, TransMolecular, VisEn Medical
UPDATED: Expanded items on SarCode, Celldex/Avant and Ablynx.
UPDATE REDUX: Added items on BioForm Medical, High-Throughput Genomics and Orchid Cellmark/ReliaGene.
San Francisco’s SarCode draws down $7M for inflammation drugs — The two-year-old startup drew down $7 million as part of a $25 million first funding round the company arranged last December, VentureWire reports (subscription required). Investors in that round included Alta… Continue Reading
Biotech financing: Not everyone gets a turn at the firehose
Every trend has its counterexamples, and the rush of venture funding into biotechnology is no exception.
VentureWire reports today (subscription required) on the case of Sequella, a small Rockville, Md., biotech working on new therapies for drug-resistant tuberculosis (whose bacterium is pictured at left). The company is seeking $20 million to put SQ109 (link to PDF), its leading TB-drug candidate, through mid-stage human testing. So far, however, the company isn’t finding many takers:
“There are 30… Continue Reading