Intuitive Surgical buys NeoGuide for less invasive surgical tech
Intuitive Surgical, provider of large robotic surgical equipment, announced its acquisition of NeoGuide Systems, a San Jose, Calif., company that makes minimally invasive surgical devices. Financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed. Intuitive says it doesn’t have a specific application for NeoGuide’s technology yet but is most interested in devices that access the body through the mouth, reports VentureWire.
NeoGuide was backed by Advent Venture Partners, Angels Forum, Halo Fund, Arboretum Ventures, 3i Group,… Continue Reading
Arcxis pulls in funds to diagnose gene-linked diseases
Arcxis Biotechnologies, a Pleasanton, Calif. biotech tool maker focused on DNA analysis — especially for diagnostic purposes — just closed an undisclosed sum (higher than $8 million) toward an anticipated $15 million second round of funding for commercial development of its lead product (slated to launch two months from now). The company’s technology gauges changes in patients’ genes to detect infectious diseases and other dangerous health conditions; the product in question is used to prepare… Continue Reading
Predictive Biosciences raises $21.8M for cancer diagnostic tech
Predictive Biosciences, a company that hopes to improve the way cancer is diagnosed and monitored, announced that it brought in $21.8 million in second-round financing led by New Enterprise Associates and including contributions from Kaiser Permanente Ventures, Flybridge Venture Capital and Highland Capital Partners. This brings the company’s VC total up to $31.7 million since its inception in 2006.
The Lexington, Mass.-based company plans to use its new funds to complete clinical studies and launch new… Continue Reading
Life sciences briefing: Thursday, Feb. 21, 2008
TODAY’S HEADLINES:
Compact ultrasound maker Zonare Medical raises $30M (VentureWire)
TherOx raises $30M for hypersaturated-oxygen devices (peHUB)
Accumetrics, antiplatelet-drug diagnostic maker, raises $29M (release)
Population Genetics takes in £3.8M for massively parallel genome studies (GenomeWeb)
“Brain fitness” trainer Dakim raises $11M (release)
BioIQ, home-diagnostics maker, takes in $2.5M (release)
Hospital med-tracker Sabal Medical raises funds (release)
Seattle’s PharmaIN gets $400K NIH grant for nanoparticle staph drug (PDF release)
SensiGen, molecular-diagnostics developer, receives Michigan state loan (release)
Arcus Ventures aims for $50M fund, targets cancer (VentureWire)
Compact… Continue Reading
Life sciences briefing: Tuesday, Oct. 23, 2007
Featured companies: Apex Radiology, Arcxis Biotechnologies, EKR Therapeutics, Franklin & Seidelmann, Michelson Diagnostics, SensiGen, Vascular Closure Systems
UPDATED: Expanded items on Arcxis, Vascular Closure and Archemix.
Arcxis pulls in $2M for DNA tools — Arcxis Biotechnologies, a Pleasanton, Calif., biotech tool maker focused on analysis of DNA and proteins in biological samples, raised $2 million in a follow-on to its first funding round, VentureWire reports (subscription required). Investors included Kaiser Permanente Ventures and Claremont Creek Ventures.
Arcxis released its first… Continue Reading
Healthline gets $21M more to extend health search engine
Giant players such as Google and Microsoft already provide health care-focused search sites, but they aren’t that impressive.
San Francisco’s Healthline, however, is focusing solely on health search, and is making surprising headway. It has six million monthly unique users, and is the only search engine among the top-twenty U.S. health-related sites — with the exception of Yahoo Health (see list below). And with healthcare a very important part of the economy, there’s a land-grab going… Continue Reading