VentureBeat

TODAY’S HEADLINES:

• PolyRemedy, developer of robotic wound care, takes in $25M (release)
• Bacchus Vascular gets $15M for clot-busting device (VentureWire)
• Protein-evolution company Modular Genetics gets $1.2M (VentureWire)
• PharmatrophiX gets $300K for Alzheimer’s disease prevention drugs (release)
• Light Sciences Oncology withdraws IPO (Edgar)
• Arizona’s Translational Accelerator launches $20M life-sciences fund (bizjournals.com)
• Cornea-reshaper Avedro gets $7M (VentureWire)
• Gastrotech Pharma gets $6M in wake of Lilly deal (VentureWire)
• Biomaterials maker MiMedx goes public via reverse merger (release)
• Acrongenomics to complete acquisition of Molecular Vision by the end of Q1 (release)

PolyRemedy, developer of robotic wound care, takes in $25M – Mountain View, Calif.-based PolyRemedy, a developer of systems that robotically manufacture wound dressings for patients, raised $25 million in a second funding round. Investors included Advanced Technology Ventures, IDG Ventures Boston, MedVenture Associates and Harris & Harris Group.

PolyRemedy has been keeping quiet about its work until now, but the company’s release lays out its strategy, which is to fabricate customized wound dressings at the “point of care” — here, apparently, doctors’ offices and home-care situations. The goal is to provide better treatment for chronic wounds such as diabetic ulcers, a common complication of diabetes that can manifest in the feet and other extremities as a result of nerve damage and poor blood circulation. The company claims its technology has been proven in clinical trials, but hasn’t provided any details.

Bacchus Vascular gets $15M for clot-busting device – Bacchus Vascular, a Santa Clara, Calif., developer of devices for local drug treatment of blood clots, raised $15 million in an extension of a recent recapitalization round, VentureWire reports. Investors included Vertical Group, Warburg Pincus, Kaiser Permanente Venture Development and Bacchus founder Thomas J. Fogarty.

Bacchus makes and markets a system it calls Trellis, which is a minimally invasive, catheter-based device consisting of two inflatable balloons and a “dispersion wire.” Physicians thread the catheter through the clot and inflate balloons at each end of it, then infuse a clot-busting drug directly into the clot. The dispersion wire then mechanically helps break up the clot, whose remains are then sucked out through the catheter. Bacchus is currently focused on deep-vein thrombosis, which are large clots usually located in the legs. Its device was approved in 2005, and the company intends to use the new funds to expand its marketing efforts.

Bacchus restarted with a $7.6 million recapitalization in June 2006 after apparently exhausting the patience of two initial investors, Three Arch Partners and De Novo Ventures, who haven’t participated in subsequent fundings. Prior to the recapitalization, Bacchus had raised $40 million, according to VentureWire.

Protein-evolution company Modular Genetics gets $1.2M – Modular Genetics, a Cambridge, Mass., biotech that engineers new proteins with enhanced function, raised $1.2 million toward an expected $5 million fourth funding round, VentureWire reports. Individual investors provided the funding.

Modular makes a gene-engineering system it calls the CombiGenex that can shuffle and recombine genes in order to make modified or novel proteins. By making thousands of slightly different molecules and then screening for the ones with improved functions, Modular aims to “evolve” new proteins for therapeutic uses.

PharmatrophiX gets $300K for Alzheimer’s disease prevention drugs – San Francisco’s PharmatrophiX (no Web site), a biotech working on drugs that prevent neurodegenerative disease, received a $300,000 grant from the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation. Founded by Stanford researcher Frank Longo, PharmatrophiX is developing a class of drugs that mimic the activity of proteins called neurotrophins, which aid in the development, health and survival of neurons.

Light Sciences Oncology withdraws IPO – Bellevue, Wash.-based Light Sciences Oncology, a developer of light-activated chemotherapy, withdrew its $96.6 million IPO, citing “unfavorable market conditions.” Light Sciences becomes the seventh life-science startup to yank an IPO filing this year.

Light Sciences has kept hope alive for an awfully long time. The company originally filed its registration statement in April 2006, but hasn’t amended it since September of that year. Light Sciences raised $30 million in a second funding round last July, despite its still-active IPO registration.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this item misstated PolyRemedy’s systems as “robotically apply[ing] wound dressings.” I’ve restated that to match the description in the second paragraph, which accurately describes the systems.

Innovalight, a Silicon Valley company that says it has come up with new solar cell with nano-particles of silicon, has raised a large $28 million round of capital and said it plans to open a 30,000 square foot manufacturing facility next year.Innovalight is still being very vague on the details of its technology, and it’s very late to the game. There are already more than a dozen other large companies and start-ups that are developing new solar energy modules.

Innovalight’s claim to differentiation is that it won’t use silicon in its costly, inflexible crystalline wafer state. It will reduce the silicon to nanosize crystal dots (see our earlier coverage), so that it can be used as a sort of ink, where it can be painted onto surfaces. At this point, though, being late may not matter as much as getting it right. The market for solar is expected to be huge (the market is predicted by some to more than double to $36 billion by 2010), as long as the price of the product can get low enough to be competitive with competing sources of energy.

The company hopes to take the efficiency properties of silicon and outperform other start-ups companies that are working on flexible, ink technologies based on materials other than silicon, such as CIGS. These companies include Konarka, Nanosolar, Miasole, Solyndra, SoloPower and Heliovolt. Many of these companies have made promises about their technology, but have failed to deliver on their declared time frame. They’ve also been soaking up engineering talent in the sector, making it harder for late companies such as Innovalight to hire the people they need.

It is the Sunnvale, Calif. company’s third round of funding, and it was led by Norway-based investor, Convexa Capital and supported by Scatec AS. Existing investors Apax Partners, ARCH Venture Partners, Harris & Harris Group, Sevin Rosen Funds and Triton Ventures also participated in this financing. The company, founded in 2002, previously raised $14 million.
CEO Conrad Burke wrote a guest column for VentureBeat in March.

BridgeLux, maker of chips for “light emitting diodes” that are environmentally cleaner lighting sources than standard lightbulbs, has raised a $23 million third round of funding, according to VentureWire (subscription required).

It joins the rush of other LED companies, including D.lightdesign (coverage), Quanlight (coverage), Intematix (raised $25 million from DFJ and Crosslink), Group IV Semiconductor ($8.2M from Khosla Ventures and BDC Capital). Yet another company, publicly traded Cree, has sued BridgeLux for patent infringement.

The BridgeLux round was led by new investor Chrysalix Energy Venture Capital, and included DCM, El Dorado Ventures, Harris & Harris Group. New investor VantagePoint Venture Partners also participated. It adds to the $8 million already raised by the company. The company’s LED chips provide light in devices such as mobile phones, camera flashes and automobiles.

Meanwhile, Ottawa-based Group IV also raised another round from Garage Technology Ventures Canada, Applied Materials and existing backers.

Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. estimates that the market for LEDs used for illumination and display will grow to $4 billion in 2001 from less than $1 billion in revenue last year, VentureWire noted.