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Just over six weeks ago, we broke the news that 5AM Ventures had plunked $3.3 million into a stealthy biotech it was calling ImmunoNewco, and a few weeks later speculated further that the startup might be engaged in a pharmacogenomic “rescue” of immune-modulating drugs acquired from the low-profile Danish biotech Borean Pharma.

Well, I was largely right — but still partly wrong — about the goings-on at ImmunoNewco. I recently spoke with the company’s new CEO, Kathy Bowdish, in order to get the real scoop.

First, what I got wrong: ImmunoNewco — a placeholder name — isn’t about pharmacogenomics at all. (Brief recap: Because public filings named former Perlegen Sciences executive Phyllis Whiteley as the startup’s president, I suspected that it might be planning to use genetic profiling to identify the patients most likely to respond to an otherwise disappointing drug.) Instead, ImmunoNewco essentially is Borean Pharma, as the startup basically acquired the Danish concern a short while back.

Bowdish says 5AM, which recently brought on respected Scripps Institute immunologist Richard Ulevitch as a venture partner, wanted to expand its presence in immune-related disorders — a vast array of disease encompassing everything from type 2 diabetes, multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis to, potentially, heart disease and even cancer. Whiteley, who has a long history of arranging drug-licensing deals at Roche and Perlegen as well as a background in immunology, came aboard to locate drug candidates that could be used to jump-start a startup, so to speak.

Ulevitch and Whiteley “scoured the world,” Bowdish told me, and eventually determined that Borean Pharma would be a “perfect fit.” Once the acquisition was underway, Bowdish joined to oversee the transfer of Borean’s programs to the new company, which will be based in San Diego. (Presumably the enigmatic Mikkel Holmen Andersen is involved as well.)

Borean’s approach to drug discovery begins with existing human proteins with important biological properties that for one reason or another aren’t suitable as drugs by themselves. (The company has so far focused on human tetranectin, a fairly recently discovered blood protein that may play a role in various autoimmune diseases and cancer.) Borean’s insight was to bind additional proteins to tetranectin in order to enhance its stability and effectiveness as a drug.

I’d point to Borean’s site for more details, but it’s reverted to a stub pending the launch of ImmunoNewco, and tetranectin seems to be an awfully complicated and not particularly well-understood protein. BioPortfolio does have a brief summary of Borean’s work to date.

None of Borean’s drugs have entered human testing yet, and Bowdish declined to say what diseases the company hopes to target. She does sat, however, that the Borean technology “has an unlimited potential for next-generation immunology.” We’ll have to wait to learn more.

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.

(UPDATED: See below.)

5AM Ventures has invested $3.3 million in an immunology startup so far known only as ImmunoNewco. Andy Schwab, a co-founder of 5AM, confirmed the investment but declined to provide further details, saying only that “we’re still putting ImmunoNewco together.”

ImmunoNewco — a name that will change once the startup takes shape — is currently based in Menlo Park, Calif., which also happens to be where 5AM is located. The company will focus on immunology and research into immune-based diseases, according to our information. Schwab said 5AM is the sole investor in the new company.

There are interesting clues that ImmunoNewco may be using technology developed by Borean Pharma, a Danish biotech that’s working on protein-based drugs against autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and Crohn’s disease. According to this LinkedIn profile, Borean’s director of protein chemistry started a new job with ImmunoNewco in December, where he holds the same position and is heading up “technology transfer of all projects in Borean Pharma ApS to american investor, CA.”

I haven’t been able to reach the profile’s owner to verify this information — I’m working on that — but it’s certainly intriguing, as all the pieces seem to fit. Borean hasn’t put out a press release since last October, and there’s no indication on their site that they’re undergoing a change of ownership or selling off assets, so take this for what it’s worth at the moment. I’ve emailed the Borean CEO as well.

UPDATE: The mysterious Mikkel Andersen, author of the LinkedIn profile in question,  remains reclusive; he declined an InMail (through LinkedIn) seeking comment, and I just noticed that he’s finally edited his LinkedIn page to eliminate the above-quoted reference to his current work for ImmunoNewco. Good thing, then, that I snapped a screenshot of his page before he changed it; see below. I should also note that 5AM’s Andy Schwab didn’t reply to an email asking specifically about Mikkel Andersen and Borean Pharma, although he had answered other queries prior to that one. The current CEO of Borean, Johanna Holldack, also didn’t reply to an email seeking comment.

Here’s Andersen’s old LinkedIn page. Click the image to see a full-sized version:

TODAY’S HEADLINES:

• 5AM Ventures puts $3.3M into stealthy ImmunoNewco (VBLS exclusive)
• NewLink Genetics raises $17M for cancer vaccine, immune drugs (VBLS exclusive)
• Biochip, stem-cell biotech Minerva Bio ousts CEO Jim Czirr and sues (release)
• Sonexa Therapeutics takes $30M for Alzheimer’s treatment (release)
• Tissue regenerator Healionics pulls in $1.7M (release)
• EGeen, clinical research organization, receives $245K (VentureWire)
• Barnvet Labs, HeMemics Bio get $75K apiece from Maryland gov’t (release)

5AM Ventures puts $3.3M into new immune-related startup – I’ve moved this item to a standalone post here.

NewLink Genetics raises $17M for cancer vaccine, immune drugs – I’ve moved the item to a standalone post here.

Biochip, stem-cell biotech Minerva Bio ousts CEO Jim Czirr and sues – This item is now a standalone post here.

Sonexa Therapeutics takes $30M for Alzheimer’s treatment – San Diego’s Sonexa Therapeutics (no Web site), a specialty pharma, raised $30 million in a first funding round. The proceeds will go toward licensing a so-far undisclosed compound from a Japanese pharmaceutical company that Solexa says is “being tested as a therapeutic to treat Alzheimer’s disease.”

Solexa will have worldwide rights to the experimental drug, excepting Japan and certain Asian countries. Investors in the round included Domain Associates, Scale Venture Partners, Alta Partners, AgeChem Venture Fund and MC Life Science Ventures.

Tissue regenerator Healionics pulls in $1.7M – Redmond, Wash.-based Healionics, a device company focused on tissue regeneration and biomaterials, raised $1.7 million in a first funding round. Individual investors, including Carl Lombardi, the former CEO of SpaceLabs Medical, and Sam Naficy, the medical director of the Naficy Plastic Surgery & Rejuvenation Center, provided the funding.

Healionics is focused on a new class of biomaterials it calls STAR, for sphere-templated angiogenic regeneration. These STAR materials are designed for insertable or implantable medical devices that need to integrate smoothly with and promote healing of the body’s tissues. In particular, Healionics claims that the materials are specifically engineered with “tightly controlled pore geometry” that maximizes the growth of blood vessels and tissue entry while minimizing the body’s tendency to “wall off” implants with scar tissue.

The company, founded last March, says it has established “multiple partnerships” for advancing the development of its materials. Possible applications include diabetes, wound care and infusion therapy.

EGeen, clinical research organization, receives $245K –EGeen, a contract research organization in Mountain View, Calif., raised $245,433 to expand its global operations, VentureWire reports. Ambient Sound Investments provided the funding.

EGeen conducts clinical trials for pharma and biotech companies in Estonia and other Eastern European nations. It has recently established a presence in the Ukraine and Romania. The company has previously raised $4.8 million in two funding rounds.

(UPDATED: See below.)

A common dilemma in biotech acquisitions is how to keep a startup’s entrepreneurial management happy and productive when they’ve just been assimilated by the Borg. The answer, often enough, is not to bother, and to let them spin out a new company with scientific “leftovers” that weren’t the point of the acquisition in the first place.

That’s more or less what Amgen has just done in launching Relypsa, a new Santa Clara, Calif., biotech just spun out of the big biotech’s Ilypsa unit. Relypsa is basically a full restart of Ilypsa — thus the name, I suppose — which Amgen acquired earlier this year for roughly $420 million (see our coverage here).

Of course, the new startup now lacks the kidney-disease drug (specifically, a treatment for hyperphosphatemia) that Amgen had shown particular interest in. But Relypsa is free to rev up its existing drug-discovery platform — one focused on making drugs out of long-lasting polymers that grab and eliminate excess molecules such as potassium or sodium — and also managed to keep a pipeline of promising candidates that might one day be useful in treating kidney and heart disease.

Such restarts of acquired biotechs aren’t unknown in the industry, although they’ve been growing in popularity. For instance, the former management of Eyetech Pharmaceuticals recently banded together to form Ophthotech with technology left over from Eyetech after it was swallowed by OSI Pharmaceuticals (our coverage here). This sort of strategy is likely to hold increasing relevance for Big Pharma as its companies fire up their biotech-acquisition machines.

The Relypsa deal, however, may set records for speed and continuity. The former CEO of Ilypsa, Jay Shepard, reprises that role at Relypsa; Ilypsa co-founder Garrett Klaerner returns as COO; and Ilypsa’s former chief medical officer Detlef Albrecht now resumes that position at Relypsa. (Honestly, props to whoever came up with the name “Relypsa,” because it’s really apropos here.) And so on down the line.

Relypsa raised $33 million in a first spinout round, with investors that included 5AM Ventures, New Leaf Venture Partners, the Sprout Group, Delphi Ventures, CMEA Ventures and Mediphase Venture Partners. Amgen, of course, retains a minority stake in Relypsa, and probably insisted on some form of right-of-first-refusal should Relypsa get interested in striking a partnership with — or selling itself to — another company. (I’ve asked Relypsa’s representatives about that, and will report back if I learn more.)

UPDATE: Relypsa’s external PR person got back to me on the right-of-first-refusal question, but kudos to you if you can make any sense of it. Here’s the response in its entirety: “Amgen retained certain rights related to transferred programs customary for spin outs at this stage. Relypsa will initiate partnering campaigns for certain indications and territories as appropriate.” Well, that was helpful. Sometimes I wonder why I bother asking.

UPDATE REDUX: In a later interview, Relypsa COO Gerrit Klaerner told me that “of course” Relypsa has an “entanglement” with Amgen, although he wouldn’t go much further than the official statement in describing Amgen’s particular rights. “There is enough skin in the game for Amgen to keep an interest in Relypsa,” he said. “If you see us doing a partnership, you will get an answer to your question.”

Klaerner added that the idea of recreating Ilypsa came up shortly after the acquisition. “We wanted to save a bunch of jobs and create a new home for the technology,” said Klaerner, who worked as an advisor to 5AM for the deal. “We had 38 people who, after the success of Ilypsa, had multiple job offers and asked them to stick with us, even though the company wasn’t really created.” What’s more, he said, Amgen’s backing of the deal didn’t waver despite the company’s recent woes (see, for instance, here). “Given what they were going through, to give this level of high-level support was really, really remarkable,” Klaerner said.

Oh, and the name Relypsa was apparently an internal placeholder that turned into the real thing when no one could think of anything better, Klaerner said.

FINAL UPDATE: I started thinking about other recent deals that resemble Ilypsa-Relypsa after an email correspondent planted the bug in my ear. The one that comes most immediately to mind would be the launch of Sequel Pharmaceuticals — another clever name — out of NovaCardia’s acquisition by Merck (our coverage here). Another example would be Cerexa Pharmaceuticals, which spun out of Peninsula Pharmaceuticals in 2005 after Peninsula was purchased by J&J. Cerexa was acquired by Forest Labs this past January, and doesn’t appear to have launched another spinout.

Have any other good examples? Sound off in comments.

Featured companies: Cyntellect, Lectus Therapeutics, NeoMatrix, Nexstim, Pearl Therapeutics, Proteon Therapeutics, SupplyScape

(UPDATED at 10am PT: See below.)

Airway-disease specialist Pearl Therapeutics raises $15.5M — Redwood City, Calif.-based Pearl Therapeutics, a drug-formulation company focused on respiratory disease, raised $15.5 million in a first funding round. Investors included New Leaf Ventures, Clarus Ventures and 5AM Ventures.

Pearl doesn’t appear to have a working Web site yet, but according to its release, the company aims to treat unspecified airway diseases using “particle technologies” it has licensed from Nektar Therapeutics. Nektar, of course, is the company that spent years co-developing the inhalable insulin Exubera with Pfizer, only to see it flop in the marketplace — not least because the bulky inhaler resembled nothing so much as a bong.

In fact, Pearl’s ties to Nektar run deep. In addition to licensing its basic technology from Nektar, the company was founded in 2006 by two former Nektar executives, Adrian Smith and Sarvajna Dwivedi. Pearl most likely also aims to reformulate existing drugs into a better inhalable form — and presumably hopes for better luck in doing so.

Proteon Therapeutics sucks in $12M for vascular drug — Proteon, a Waltham, Mass., biotech, raised $12 million in a follow-on to its first funding round. Investors included TVM Capital, Skyline Ventures, Prism VentureWorks and Intersouth Partners.

Proteon’s main drug candidate, PRT-201, aims to do something new by permanently enlarging blood vessels at the site of administration. The technology is based on elastases, a type of protein-cutting enzyme, which supposedly modify the “extracellular matrix” of blood vessels in order to enlarge them. The company expects the drug might be useful for kidney-dialysis patients, who now often have to undergo surgery to create blood vessels large enough for a connection to the blood-filtration devices, and in peripheral arterial disease.

Brain scanner Nexstim beams in €8M — Nexstim , a Helsinki, Finland-based developer of brain-imaging techniques, raised €8 million ($10.9 million) in a private placement. Investors included HealthCap, LSP (Life Sciences Partners), Finnish Industry Investment and Sitra.

Nexstim is working on a new brain-imaging technique it calls “navigated brain stimulation.” The details are pretty hairy — check out the company’s release if you’d like to know more — but it essentially combines several different electromagnetic-imaging techniques with a movable coil that can be guided wherever the operator would like. The system isn’t approved for clinical use, although Nexstim said the funding would allow it to obtain the necessary regulatory approval.

Health software company SupplyScape raises $10M, names new CEO — SupplyScape, a Woburn, Mass., developer of supply-chain software for life-sciences companies, raised $10 million in a third funding round. Investors in the latest round included IDG Ventures Boston, North Bridge Venture Partners, Pilot House Ventures, Bethesda Partners, and Pfizer Strategic Investments Group.

The company also named Mark O’Connell, former CEO of MatrixOne, as its chief executive.

The average person, however, could be forgiven for having no clue what SupplyScape actually does. According to the company’s press releases, it makes software to “maximize product integrity and create business value for pharmaceutical, biotech, medical device companies.” Its Web site promises “collaborative pharmaceutical value chains” that improve “security and profitability.” As it turns out, the company’s software helps track and trace drugs from their point of manufacture through various distribution channels in order to guard against counterfeits, at least so far as I can tell from its Web site.

Cancer screener NeoMatrix raises $9.6M — San Diego’s NeoMatrix, a company focused on early detection of breast cancer, raised $9.6 million in a third funding round. Private investors provided the funding, the company told me. (Its release doesn’t include these details.) Out of sheer coincidence, two southern California businessmen — Anthony Ciabattoni and Richard Franco Sr. — also just joined the company’s board (see the release for details).

Founded in 2000, NeoMatrix sells a screening test that detects pre-malignant or malignant cells in “nipple aspirate fluid,” which is extracted from the breast using a “gentle” suction device. The company said the new funds will allow it to hire its first sales reps, expand its marketing efforts and to convert or retire remaining debt the company used to finance development of its test.

Lectus draws in £3M for MS drugs — Cambridge, England-based Lectus Therapeutics, a biotech focused on a class of drugs known as ion-channel modulators, raised £3 million ($6.1 million) in funding from the Wellcome Trust. The investment is intended specifically to fund development of drugs for multiple sclerosis. Lectus had previously identified its primary disease interests as urinary bladder disorders, pain and angina.

Cell imager Cyntellect adds $3M in funding — Cytellect, a San Diego developer of cell imaging and manipulation systems, raised an additional $3 million in a fourth funding round, bringing the total for the round to $18.1 million. Bru II Venture Capital Fund, based in Reykjavik, Iceland, provided the additional funding.

Cyntellect’s laser-based equipment makes it possible to fluorescently image cells, isolate and destroy unwanted cells in a sample, and to “optoinject” various molecules directly into cells. See our previous coverage here.

UPDATE (10am PT): Added items on Cyntellect, Lectus Therapeutics, NeoMatrix, Nexstim, Pearl Therapeutics, and Proteon Therapeutics.

KaloBios, a Palo Alto, Calif., biotech antibody-therapeutic company, raised $20 million in a third funding round. The company is developing new drugs based on monoclonal antibodies, which target specific cells or proteins in the body. Its lead candidate, an antibody against granulocyte macrophage colony-stimulating factor, or GM-CSF — a protein that helps regulate the white-blood-cell immune response — is intended to treat a variety of immune-related diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and asthma.

Lehman Brothers led the round, joined by MPM Capital, Sofinnova Ventures, Alloy Ventures, 5AM Ventures, Singapore Bioinnovations, and Lotus BioScience Ventures. The funding will allow KaloBios to support clinical testing of two antibodies and to move a third into human tests.

Marcadia Biotech, an Indianapolis biotech focused on diabetes and obesity, raised $15 million in a first round of funding led by Frazier Healthcare Ventures and founding investor 5AM Ventures. Founding investor Twilight Venture Partners also joined the round. The company’s announcement is here.

Marcadia, founded by former execs from Eli Lilly and Guidant, is developing a stable form of glucagon that could be administered to diabetics when their blood sugar drops precipitously, a state called hypoglycemic shock that can lead to coma and death.