Onyx Pharma set to buy Proteolix for up to $851M

Onyx Pharmaceuticals, developer of treatments for liver and late-stage kidney cancer, has moved to acquire Proteolix, provider of a technology that can accelerate the death of cancer cells, for as much as $851 million. Emeryville, Calif.-based Onyx says it wants to incorporate this component, which has proved less toxic and more effective in patients, into its current offerings.

When the deal closes, South San Francisco-based Proteolix will receive $276 million in cash, with the option of… Continue Reading

Life sciences briefing: Thursday, Feb. 14, 2008

Life sciences briefing: Thursday, Feb. 14, 2008

TODAY’S HEADLINES:

Arbor Surgical draws another $5.5M for heart-valve replacements (VBLS exclusive)
AstraZeneca spinout Albireo raises $27M for GI drugs (release)
Knee-implant maker MAKO Surgical slashes IPO price range (release)
eScreen takes in $8M for automated drug screening (peHUB)
GlucoLight gets undisclosed funding for glucose monitoring (release)
Oddo et al. order $4M for odor-sniffer Odotech (release)
Baird Capital Partners acquires med-device manufacturer Ellman Int’l (peHUB)
Cancer biotech BiPar names Hoyoung Huh as CEO (release)

AstraZeneca spinout Albireo raises $27M for GI drugs – AstraZeneca spun… Continue Reading

Life sciences briefing: Thursday, Nov. 15, 2007

Life sciences briefing: Thursday, Nov. 15, 2007

Featured companies: BioVex, FullTurn Media, Humanetics, N Spine, Novitas Capital, Reliant Technologies, Symbios, Vaxart, Virtual Radiologic, Winston Laboratories, Zosano Pharma

EXPANDING ITEMS: Stay tuned.

Vaxart receives $3.3M for oral vaccines — San Francisco’s Vaxart, a biotech developing novel adenovirus-based vaccines, raised $2.7 million in a first funding round. Vaxart also received a $600,000 small-business innovation grant from the NIH to assist in developing the company’s vaccine platform.

Vaxart’s vaccine technology involves a non-replicating adenovirus engineered to produce a particular bacterial… Continue Reading

Life sciences briefing: Thursday, Oct. 25, 2007

Life sciences briefing: Thursday, Oct. 25, 2007

Featured companies: BioVex, Cavadis, Innovention, Paratek Pharmaceuticals, Phase Bioscience, Reliant Pharmaceuticals, Xencor

UPDATED: Expanded Paratek and Xencor items.

Paratek Pharma raises $40M for new antibiotics — Boston’s Paratek Pharmaceuticals, a biotech working on new antibiotics to treat drug-resistant bacterial infections, raised a first tranche of a $40 million eighth round of funding. The company’s release is here, VentureWire (subscription required) has more details here.

Investors in this funding included Aisling Capital, D.E. Shaw, Boston Life Science Venture Corporation, Nomura Phase4… Continue Reading

Drug delivery co., Macroflux, raises $75M

Macroflux Corp., a Mountain View developer of drug delivery technology using patches, has raised $75 million in first-round funding, as it spins out from Johnson & Johnson subsidiary ALZA Corp.

Nomura Phase4 Ventures led the deal, and was joined by New Enterprise Associates and HBM Partners. ALZA has a minority position of less than 20 percent in the spin-off, according to VentureWire (sub required), which first reported the news this morning.