VentureBeat

BioNanomatrix, a Philadelphia developer of genome-analysis systems, raised $5.1 million in a first funding round. Investors included Battelle Ventures, Innovation Valley Partners, KT Venture Group, Ben Franklin Technology Partners and21Ventures.

BioNanomatrix is developing a single-molecule imaging and analysis system that the startup says is ideal for reading DNA sequences. The startup still isn’t divulging many details about its system, although the Philadelphia Inquirer suggested that the company’s “nanofluidics” technology could potentially read all three billion bases from a single DNA molecule without chopping it up first — a common step in most sequencing setups these days, albeit one that also increases the complexity of reassembling the fragmented sequences into a coherent whole.

According to that article, in fact, BioNanomatrix has produced a nanofabricated chip with more than a mile of tiny channels that can accomodate the full DNA molecules from all 46 chromosomes of 200 people at a time. That’s pretty spectacular if true, although of course the challenge with this sort of technology is always proving that it does what the company says it should.

We previously covered BioNanomatrix last October, when the company formed a joint venture with Complete Genomics of Menlo Park, Calif. The two companies, which shared an $8.8 million grant from the National Institute of Standards and Technology last year, are aiming to sequence an entire human genome in eight hours for $100, although they haven’t set a date by which they hope to accomplish that feat. It’s a nice bragging point, since that’s about an order of magnitude faster and cheaper than anyone else is predicting at the moment, but it’s also little more than an unsubstantiated claim for the moment.

For more coverage of the high-speed genomics race, see my previous posts onPacific Biosciences and its nanowell technique, Intelligent Bio-Systems’ $5,000 genome challenge, and VisiGen’s promise of a $1,000 genome by the end of 2009. Don’t miss my Q&A with MDV’s Bill Ericson about the medical promise of fast, cheap genome scans.

TODAY’S HEADLINES:

• Cancer stem-cell co. OncoMed strikes GSK partnership worth up to $1.4B (release)
• Kosmix pulls in $10M for health, lifestyle search (release)
• CDI Bioscience pulls in $3M for protein-production improvements (release)
• UroMedica takes in $7M for incontinence devices (VentureWire, sub req’d)
• Draths raises $2.5M for flu drugs (PE Hub)

Cancer stem-cell co. OncoMed strikes GSK partnership worth up to $1.4B – Redwood City, Calif.-based OncoMed Pharmaceuticals, a biotech founded to target and destroy the “cancer stem cells” that researchers believe may lurk at the heart of every tumor, struck a major partnership with GlaxoSmithKline to discover and commercialize new cancer drugs based on OncoMed’s technology.

The deal allows GSK to license up to four of OncoMed’s monoclonal antibody drugs that are directed at multiple cancer stem-cell targets. In turn, OncoMed gets an undisclosed initial payment, an equity investment, and milestone payments of up to $1.4 billion, plus double-digit royalties on any marketed products. The arrangement includes OncoMed’s leading product candidate, OMP-21M18, which is scheduled to begin human testing this year.

Cancer stem cells are, like most stem cells, thought to be progenitor cells that give rise to a diverse population of other cell types. In this case, however, the cancer stem cells theoretically keep tumors alive by constantly producing replacement tumor cells as they are killed off by chemotherapy, radiation or the body’s defenses. Cancer stem cells, in fact, may explain why tumors return so easily after surgery or chemotherapy, since if even a few stem cells survive, they can easily recreate the tumor.

CDI Bioscience pulls in $3M for protein-production improvements – CDI Bioscience, a Madison, Wisc., biotech aiming to improve the efficiency of genetically engineered cells in the production of biotech drugs, raised $3 million in a first funding round. Battelle Ventures and Innovation Valley Partners provided the funding.

CDI has developed a process that forces bioengineered cells into a “senescent” state, which CDI claims is characterized by greater energy production (in terms of increased numbers of mitochondria) and increased protein synthesis and output. The company claims that cells “shifted” into senescence routinely produce three to seven times the amount of engineered protein — the output that biotechs purify into drugs — than their unshifted counterparts.

In a capitalist society, everything has a monetary value — including the forests. However, determining a forest’s worth entails guesswork. ImageTree has produced software that asses both the economic and the environmental value of forests.

Where traditional forest surveying extrapolates from measuring a tiny sample of trees in any given forest, ImageTree uses aerial infra-red and LIDAR (like radar, but using light) measurement to figure out the size, age and species of every visible tree.

This is valuable both for logging companies, who want to know the worth of their assets, and for green investors. A budding market for carbon offsets needs strong measurement techniques to figure out exactly how much carbon a given forest absorbs.

In the first group, companies, the economics of forestry have already changed. Many forests are now owned by investment companies like real estate insurance trusts, which are more sensitive to profit margins.

Simply clear-cutting forests damages land, can make it difficult to regrow trees and potentially violates regulations, so the practice no longer makes sense for those companies. For them, land is now an ongoing asset — trees should be cut at the right time, and once cut, need to be regrown as efficiently as possible. Knowing their forests more intimately allows them to cut only when it makes sense.

That group is where ImageTree, based in forest-heavy West Virginia, is already receiving business. But the second group, environmental investors, have even more to gain.

Investors have quietly been buying up forests around the world, not to cut, but to preserve — in the name of profits. Although the market is new, those investors are guessing that healthy forests can be traded for carbon credits.

However, budding exchanges like the Chicago Climate Exchange demand accurate measurement. ImageTree can use its eyes in the sky to help develop the fledgling market, which is potentially worth billions for traders.

ImageTree’s CEO, Mark Redlus, told us that the company’s software is still mastering some of the finer points of aerial surveying, but that it’s already more accurate than traditional measurement.

The funding was led by Battelle Ventures, which has increased its investments in the clean-technology sector lately, and now has six investments in the energy and environment sector. PA Early Stage Ventures, which provided the first round of $2 million, also participated, along with Innovation Valley Partners (Battelle’s affiliate fund), the Conservation Fund’s Natural Capital Investment Fund, and the West Virginia Jobs Investment Trust Board.