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TODAY’S HEADLINES:

• Adnavance pulls in C$3.7M for molecular diagnostics, names new CEO (release)
• “Personalized medicine” co. Proprius sells to Cypress Bio for up to $75M (release)
• Vaccinex raises $25M in wake of GSK deal for antibody drugs (VentureWire)
• Cianna Medical receives $9M for breast-cancer radiation treatment (release)
• Electron-microscope image provider NanoImaging takes in $1.5M (release)
• CrystalGenomics, ProQuest Investments create JV co. Palkion (release)
• Portico Systems, software maker for insurance plans, raises $7.7M (release)
• Stealthy biotech Affomic takes in $7M (peHUB)

Adnavance pulls in C$3.7M for molecular diagnostics, names new CEO – This item is now a standalone post here.

“Personalized medicine” co. Proprius sells to Cypress Bio for up to $75M – Proprius Pharmaceuticals, a San Diego diagnostics maker, sold itself to publicly traded Cypress Bioscience for up to $75 million in cash. The company’s release is here.

Cypress will pay $37.5 million up front, and another $37.5 million to Proprius shareholders as milestone payments. Proprius licenses and develops drugs and diagnostics for various forms or arthritis. Its most immediate product candidates include tests that aim to predict whether certain individuals will develop rheumatoid arthritis and that monitor patients’ response to methotrexate, a common treatment for RA.

Vaccinex raises $25M in wake of GSK deal for antibody drugs – Rochester, N.Y.-based Vaccinex, a developer of antibody drugs, raised $25 million in an add-on to its second funding round, VentureWire reports. Investors included Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, Pan Atlantic Bank and Trust and individual investors.

Earlier this month, Vaccinex and its partner EUSA Pharma licensed a Vaccinex antibody to GlaxoSmithKline for up to $44 million plus royalties. Vaccinex and EUSA will split any profits from GSK’s potential sales of the drug.

Cianna Medical receives $9M for breast-cancer radiation treatment – Cianna Medical, an Alisa Viejo, Calif., developer of devices for delivering local radiation in breast cancer, raised $9 million in a first funding round. Fog City Fund, Windamere Venture Partners and several private individuals provided the cash.

Cianna, which was spun out of BioLucent when it was acquired by Hologic last year, is working on new devices for brachytherapy, the general term for temporarily implanting radioactive material at the site of a tumor in order to provide localized radiation treatment. The Cianna device is designed to improve upon existing brachytherapy techniques in breast cancer.

Electron-microscope image provider NanoImaging takes in $1.5M – San Diego’s NanoImaging Services, a provider of imaging services involving transmission electron microscopy, raised $1.5 million in a funding round. Merck Capital Ventures led the round. The company specializes in the characterization of large biological molecules such as proteins, which are used in a variety of products such as vaccines and drugs.

CrystalGenomics, ProQuest Investments create new JV, Palkion – Today’s award for most baffling announcement comes courtesy of CrystalGenomics, an Emeryville, Calif.-based U.S. unit of the Korean drug-discovery company CG Pharmaceuticals, and ProQuest Investments, a New Jersey VC firm, who together have formed a joint venture they’re calling Palkion. Their release is here.

What is Palkion going to do? Beats me. Here’s what the release says:

Under this agreement, CrystalGenomics will receive up to $6 million in upfront and initial research funding from Palkion, in addition to development and sales milestone payments of potentially more than $200 million. CrystalGenomics will also initially own 50% of Palkion, Inc. ProQuest will capitalize Palkion with a Series A investment and also provide the management personnel for Palkion. CG will use its unique structure-based drug design capabilities to identify drug candidates while Palkion will oversee the clinical development of novel drug candidates.

So, let’s get this straight. CrystalGenomics and ProQuest form Palkion, in which they’ll hold equal stakes despite the fact that ProQuest seems to be putting all the capital and personnel into the venture. Palkion will then start handing the money to CrystalGenomics, which will continue trying to discover drugs while Palkion “oversees” the process of testing those drugs in people. All clear?

The best I can figure is that this is a roundabout way of putting a more “American” face on a basically Korean startup that — to judge from its Web site and, in fact, this press release — seems to have a certain amount of difficulty communicating clearly with a U.S. audience. That could certainly be a problem if its drugs make it into clinical trials, given how dialogue with the FDA becomes rather crucial at that stage. But that’s just my guess at this point.

Stealthy biotech Affomic takes in $7M – Affomic, a New Haven, Conn., biotech startup so stealthy that it can announce a funding without giving anyone a clue as to what it’s doing, raised $7 million in a first financing round, peHUB reports. Investors included Connecticut Innovations, Elm Street Ventures, and Four Seasons Ventures. It goes without saying that Affomic doesn’t have a Web site — in fact, the startup doesn’t even exist so far as Google is concerned.

TODAY’S HEADLINES:

• Acorn Cardio raises $22M for heart-failure device (bizjournals.com)
• Agile Therapeutics raises $5.6M for women’s health (release)
• Polyheal draws $1M for wound healing (Globes)
• MatrixBio receives seed funding for cancer diagnostics (release)
• Pacira Pharma names David Stack as CEO (release)
• VivoMetrics appoints Howard Baker as CEO (release)

Acorn Cardio raises $22M for heart-failure device – St. Paul, Minn.-based Acorn Cardiovascular, a device maker investigating a device that would restrain the expansion of failing hearts, raised $22 million in a new funding round. Investors included Cardinal Partners, Thoratec, SightLine Partners, Credit Suisse and New Enterprise Associates.

Acorn’s device, which it calls the CorCap, is a polyethylene mesh wrap that wraps around the heart, theoretically slowing or stopping the expansion that often occurs as hearts weaken and tire. The company sells the CorCap in Europe, but last year an FDA advisory panel recommended against approval of the device, throwing Acorn’s future into doubt until it reached an agreement with the FDA to conduct a new 50-patient trial. We previously covered Acorn’s travails and its primary venture competitor, the Sunnyvale, Calif., startup Paracor Medical, in this post.

Agile Therapeutics raises $5.6M for women’s health – Agile Therapeutics, a Princeton, N.J., specialty pharma focused on new contraceptives for women, raised $5.6 million in an extension of its fifth funding round, bringing the total for that round to $17.6 million. Investors in the round include the Hillman Company, ProQuest Investments, TL Ventures and Novitas Capital.

Agile’s lead product candidate is a low-dose estrogen patch for contraception, which is currently in mid-stage human trials. Agile suggests that the seven-day patch, which delivers steady doses of levonorgestrel and ethinyl estradiol, may help alleviate some side effects associated with high hormone exposure, such as breast tenderness, bloating or weight gain, and nausea.

(UPDATED: See below.)

“Antisense” drugs that aim to shut down disease-related genes have long been out of favor, and these days live in the shadow of a hotter and newer technology — RNA interference — that does much the same thing. But that hasn’t stopped Encinitas, Calif.-based Excaliard Pharmaceuticals, a newly formed biotech focused on scarring and “fibrotic” conditions, from taking a fresh stab at the field.

The startup just licensed a slew of antisense technology from Isis Pharmaceuticals, and announced that it raised $15.5 million in a first funding round, presumably to help pay for it. Investors in the round included Alta Partners, ProQuest Investments, and RiverVest Venture Partners.

Excaliard is still keeping its head down — its Web site is basically a stub — so it’s not entirely clear exactly which diseases it plans on tackling. Still, it’s notable that the company appears willing to bet fairly heavily on antisense, which Isis and other biotechs have been working on for more than two decades, still without notable success.

Antisense technology essentially involves using short snippets of nucleic acid that bind to “complementary” strands of RNA produced as a gene produces a new protein. That binding effectively shuts down the protein production process, at least in theory. In practice, antisense drugs have failed to live up to their potential, partly because they have had difficulty getting inside cells, which is necessary to get at the RNA involved in protein production. For a graphic version of how this is all supposed to work, click on the image at upper left for a larger version.

Excaliard has paid a fairly substantial amount to get into the antisense field. It handed over an unspecified amount of equity to Isis and made a cash payment of $1 million for the rights to develop antisense drugs against a particular gene — presumably one whose malfunction is related to excessive scarring of some sort. Isis is also entitled to milestone payments and royalties should any drugs make progress.

Although antisense has long gotten a bad rap (multiple high-profile failures will do that), it’s also worth noting that Isis is getting some positive buzz off its leading antisense candidate, an anti-cholesterol drug it now calls mipomersin that has produced some promising results in mid-stage trials. Of course, previous antisense drugs have also looked good in such “phase II” trials, only to collapse in larger and more rigorous tests, but maybe this time will be different.

UPDATE: Actually, there may be a resurgence of sorts underway in antisense. It slipped my mind earlier that the U.K. startup Antisense Pharma just raised the equivalent of $38 million for a late-stage trial of an antisense brain-cancer drug. Also, Isis recently spun out Altair Therapeutics to pursue antisense in respiratory disease.

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 or viral protein, or antigen, which stimulates an immune response. The vaccine, which consists of the adenovirus and an “adjuvant” designed to enhance the immune response, is packaged in a capsule that can be taken by mouth.

Vaccines that depend on viral “vectors” like adenovirus are promising because they can produce immunity without the need to rely on attenuated or killed disease virus. When injected, however, such vaccines frequently stimulate an immune reaction to the adenovirus itself, which can negate the effect of the vaccine or subsequent booster shots. Vaxart believes that oral delivery can sidestep that problem.

The company’s early candidates include vaccines against avian flu, seasonal flu, and biowarfare agents. Investors in the round included Quantum Technology Partners, Life Science Angels, Bay Partners and Sand Hill Angels.

Reliant Tech postpones IPO — Reliant Technologies, the Mountain View, Calif., maker of laser skin treatments, postponed its IPO indefinitely, PE Hub reports. The medical-device maker had previously filed to raise up to $86.5 million in an offer of 5.4 million shares.

Reliant Tech’s postponement comes just a day after EnteroMedics, a maker of obesity-control devices, almost halved its IPO pricing. Until recently, device makers had lived a charmed life where IPOs were concerned, but it’s beginning to look as though market turmoil may be taking its toll on this sector as well. Our previous coverage of the company is here and here.

On the other hand, at least IPO investors won’t get the company confused with Reliant Pharmaceuticals anymore.

N Spine acquired by Synthes for $30M — N Spine, a San Diego maker of spinal devices, was acquired by Switzerland’s Synthes for $30 million. The release is here. N Spine shareholders also stand to receive an additional $45 million in milestone payments if development of the company’s products proceeds as planned. Our previous coverage of N Spine’s fundraising is here.

Zosano Pharma raises $45M for needle-free drugs — Fremont, Calif.-based Zosano Pharma, a specialty pharma working on needle-free drug delivery, raised $45 million in the second half of its initial venture funding. The company said it has now raised a total of $90 million. Our previous coverage of the company, which used to be called Macroflux, is here (last item).

Investors included New Enterprise Associates, Nomura Phase4 Ventures, HBM BioVentures and ProQuest Investments. Zosano’s lead candidate is a patch for delivering the drug PTH through the skin to treat osteoporosis.

OTHER HEADLINES OF NOTE:

• Virtual Radiologic prices IPO mid-range, raises up to $78M (IPO Home)
• Cancer-drug maker BioVex closes $35M round (release)
• Humanetics gets $3.8M grant for radiation countermeasures (release)
• Symbios raises almost $2M for pain-drug delivery (VentureWire, sub req’d)
• FullTurn Media launches medical-education videos, seeks $5M (VW)
• PA Early Stage Partners changes name to Novitas Capital (release)
• Specialty pharma Winston Pharma goes public via reverse merger (release)

Featured companies: Ganeden Biotech, Glenveigh Medical, Lab21, Lead Therapeutics, Navigenics, Pacific Data Designs, PharMEDium Healthcare, Sloning BioTechnology, VistaGen

UPDATED: Expanded items on Lead Therapeutics, Glenveigh Medical and Sloning BioTech, and moved the Navigenics news to a separate item here.

Lead Therapeutics raises $17M for China-based work in cancer and immunology — San Bruno, Calif.-based Lead Therapeutics, a drug-development startup that plans to do most of its research and development in China, raised $17 million in a first funding round. Investors included Pappas Ventures, ProQuest Investments and Mustang Ventures.

We’ve previously noted a few biotech startups with strong connections to China, although for the most part these have tended to be companies founded by Chinese expatriates who raise much of their funding from Asian sources. (See, for instance, our coverage of AutekBio here and of MicuRx here.) Lead Therapeutics, by contrast, raised much of its money from traditional U.S. venture firms and will be run by a GlaxoSmithKline veteran, Peter Myers, although unsurprisingly enough, several of the company’s other executives appear to have ties to Asia. (See a list here.)

Lead Therapeutics says it has “several” drug-discovery programs going in infectious disease and cancer, but hasn’t disclosed any details to the best of my knowledge.

Glenveigh Medical to pull in $10M for spinning out a device maker — Glenveigh Medical, a Durham, N.C., holding company focused on technologies for obstetrics and fetal care, said it will raise $10 million in a first funding round in order to spin out a new medical-device company, VentureWire reports (subscription required). The spinout company, still unnamed, will develop several medical devices with an eye toward launching two of them by early 2009.

One of the devices, called a pelvic pack, is designed to control heavy bleeding that can result from obstetrical procedures. Another is an implantable plug designed to control fluid loss and prevent infection in cases where the cervix tears prematurely during pregnancy. A third device is a meter designed to measure the onset of labor and related issues via changes in the cervix itself.

Sloning BioTech receives €4.7M for DNA synthesis — Munich-based DNA synthesizer Sloning BioTechnology said it raised €4.7 million ($6.8 million) in a fifth funding round. Investors included LBBW Venture Capital, HBM BioVentures, KfW Bankengruppe and Deutsche Effecten-und Wechsel-Beteiligungsgesellschaft.

Sloning is one of several companies making a business out of generating customized strands of DNA for customers in the nascent field of “synthetic biology,” which involves making artificial genes for industrial purposes. (See also our coverage of DNA2.0 here.) The company claims that its particular method is the only one capable of generating any sequence of DNA “letters,” or nucleotides; for biochemical reasons, other methods are sometimes limited in their ability to produce particular nucleotide sequences.

Navigenics raises $25M, launches personal-genomic pre-orders — See our in-depth story here.

OTHER HEADLINES OF NOTE:

• Navigenics raises more than $25M, launches personal-genomics business (release)
• PharMEDium Healthcare raises undisclosed sum of private equity(PE Hub)
• U.K.’s Lab21 appoints Graham Mullis as CEO (release)
• Pacific Data Designs draws undisclosed sum in private equity (PE Hub)
• Ganeden Biotech pulls in $12M for probiotic dietary supplements (release)
• VistaGen gets $1.2M grant for CNS drug studies (release)