VentureBeat

TODAY’S HEADLINES:

• Luminous Medical raises $24M for automated glucose monitoring (release)
• Alimera Sciences gets $30M for eye-disease drug (release)
• Vaccine maker LigoCyte draws $28M (release)
• Heartbeat tracker CardioNet trims IPO, aims for listing today (IPOhome)
• Axial Biotech takes in $6M for spinal diagnostics (release)
• Insulin bioengineer enGene receives $6.4M (release)
• GlucoLight raises funding for, well, glucose monitoring (release)
• Germany’s InflaRx gets seed funding for sepsis work (release)
• Cell imager Amnis pulls in $3.5M (VentureWire)
• Korea Bone Bank gets funding for bone transplants (release)

Luminous Medical raises $24M for automated glucose monitoring – Carlsbad, Calif.-based Luminous Medical, a medical-device maker, raised $23.5 million in a second funding round. Investors included Adams Street Partners, RiverVest Venture Partners, Finistere Ventures, De Novo Ventures and Latterell Venture Partners.

Luminous is developing an automated blood-sugar sensor for diabetic patients being treated in hospital intensive-care units and operating rooms. According to the company, keeping a tight rein on blood-glucose levels, which can soar or crash unexpectedly in diabetics, helps prevent complications while shortening hospital stays and reducing the risk of death.

Measuring such tight control, however, typically requires manually checking blood-glucose levels every 30 to 60 minutes, the company says. The Luminous device, by contrast, uses infrared spectroscopy — a technique that identifies particular molecules by measuring which wavelengths of light they absorb — to measure glucose and other blood chemicals non-invasively.

The company licensed its technology from InLight Solutions of Albuquerque, N.M., which previously invested $60 million in the technology. The device has not been approved by the FDA.

Axial Biotech takes in $6M for spinal diagnostics – Axial Biotech, a Salt Lake City diagnostic-test maker, raised $6 million as part of its second funding round. Investors included Johnson & Johnson Development, vSpring Capital and Ohio Biotech Group.

Axial, founded in 2002 by a group of spinal surgeons and geneticists, is an odd hybrid of biotech and devices. The company aims to produce tests that will predict and measure the severity of spinal problems such as scoliosis, as well as unspecified “motion-preserving technologies” — presumably an alternative to the stigmatizing back braces that orthopedists have long inflicted on children with the condition.

Insulin bioengineer enGene receives $6.4M – Canada’s enGene, a Vancouver biotech looking for ways to jump-start natural insulin production in diabetics, raised $6.4 million in a first round of funding. Investors included Saad Investments, Masa Life Science Ventures and private investors.

EnGene has an audacious — which is to say, of course, also quite chancy — approach to diabetes, in which the immune system attacks and kills insulin-producing “beta cells” in the pancreas (type 1 diabetes) or the body grows desensitized to insulin and requires higher levels (type 2 diabetes). In either case, patients often require insulin shots to maintain blood-sugar levels necessary or proper metabolism.

EnGene proposes to engineer cells in the small intestine — known as “K cells” — to produce insulin themselves. The advantage of this technique lies in the fact that K cells, like beta cells, respond to sugar levels in the gut, although they normally secrete a separate molecule. Once bioengineered to produce insulin as well, these cells could help regulate blood sugar automatically much the way beta cells normally do.

Of course, gene therapy has, in general, been a great disappointment so far, so there’s no shortage of uncertainty associated with this sort of technique. EnGene has tested its technique in mice, but not yet in humans. The startup plans to seek a second round of funding in the second half.

Alimera Sciences gets $30M for eye-disease drug – Alimera Sciences, an Alpharetta, Ga., drug developer with a focus on eye disease, raised $30 million in a third funding round. The company will now take a majority stake in its drug for diabetic macular edema, a vision-degrading complication of diabetes, which Alimera is developing with its partner pSividia.

We’ve written before about Alimera, which is presumably still contemplating an IPO this fall. All five of the company’s existing VC backers participated in the round: BA Venture Partners, Domain Associates, Intersouth Partners, Polaris Venture Partners and Venrock Associates.

Vaccine maker LigoCyte draws $28M – LigoCyte Pharmaceuticals, a Bozeman, Mont., biotech focused on new vaccines against infectious disease, raised $28 million in a third funding round. Investors included Forward Ventures, JAFCO, Novartis Venture Fund, Fidelity Biosciences, MedImmune Ventures, Athenian Venture Partners and MC Life Sciences Ventures.

The company is developing new vaccines using “virus-like particles” — usually structural viral proteins, minus the replication machinery packed in DNA or RNA — against gastroenteritis, anthrax and flu. It is also working on antibody drugs against inflammatory disease.

Santa Monica, Calif.-based Agensys, a biotech focused on new cancer drugs, raised $41 million in a fourth funding round. Duquesne Capital Management and JAFCO led the round, joined by Innovis Investments, Nextech Venture, Bear Stearns Health Innoventures, Alta Partners, HBM BioVentures, Lombard Odier Darier Hentsch & Cie, H&Q Life Sciences Investments, and Orbimed Associates.

Agensys develops monoclonal antibodies designed to target surface proteins or other molecules that specifically identify tumor cells. Its first drug candidate, AGS-PSCA, targets a protein known as prostate stem-cell antigen, which the company claims is found in a majority of patients with prostate, pancreatic and bladder cancer. In conjunction with Merck, Agensys launched an early stage phase I trial of AGS-PSCA in 2005 that apparently demonstrated the drug’s safety, although the company hasn’t had much to say about the drug since.

In January, the company also struck an agreement with Seattle Genetics to co-develop “antibody-drug conjugates,” which combine a toxic chemotherapy drug with an antibody designed to help it hone in on a targeted tumor.

Agensys was founded in 1997 as UroGenesys, but updated its name in 2001. It had previously raised $62.1 million in three rounds.

(Updated with more info on security functions)

ClairMail, a Novato, Calif. start-up, allows customers to transact business through SMS or email from their mobile phones. It has raised $12 million in second round of funding.

A number of companies, including 4Info and Google, let users use text messaging to get information — such as movie listings, sports scores and weather. However, they don’t support transactions with banks. Only ClairMail has built out the secure infrastructure to do that, says its chief executive Joseph Salesky.

The funding was led by JAFCO Ventures. Existing investors Norwest Venture Partners and Outlook Ventures also participated.

Clairmail lets customers do their banking via SMS, including transferring funds, verifying account and transaction information. A customer messages the bank from their phone, and the bank confirms the customers identity by texting back to the phone and opening up a channel for a transaction.

What if someone loses their phone, and another person takes it and tries to text the person’s bank account and remove cash?

Salesky said that is unlikely to happen, because cell phones are usually the first thing people realize is missing, and all they have to do is call to their carrier, and have it switched off — and that a thief is unlikely to know how to text a bank, and which bank to text. (Update: Moreover, when someone transfers funds, Clairmail pushes them a WAP link or calls them to prompt for a PIN, to provide additional security. Neither the WAP link nor the PIN are stored in the phone.)

The company was founded two years ago. Previously, Salesky was at Oracle for several years, and then founded Pixion, which he said invented web conferencing, and another company, Skytron.

The idea for the company came after he realized how the phone bill is the biggest expense in his home, but that its messaging capability is archaic. Why not use email and texting as an accessing technology, he decided.

The company has several customers, including one that spends over $1 million a year, he said, declining to disclose the customer names.