VentureBeat

TODAY’S HEADLINES:

• Metabolic-disease biotech NGM Biopharma raises $25M (peHUB)
• Heart, HIV drug maker Numerate acquires assets of Pharmix (release)
• Next-gen sequencer VisiGen promises $1,000 genome by late 2009 (Genome Technology)
• CalciMedica raises $5.5M for autoimmune drugs (VentureWire)
• Cancer-drug e-marketplace OneOncology raises funds (release)
• U.K. biotech Hunter-Fleming acquired by Newron for €8M (release)
• Intertek acquires Ireland’s Bioclin Labs, a contract research organization (release)

Metabolic-disease biotech NGM Biopharma raises $25M – South San Francisco-based NGM Biopharmaceuticals (Web site under construction), a biotech developing new drugs for heart and metabolic conditions, raised $25 million in a first funding round, peHUB reports. Investors included Column Group, Prospect Venture Partners and Rho Ventures.

NGM, currently helmed by Tularik founder David Goeddel on an acting basis, isn’t divulging much about its plans. According to VentureWire, the company is developing new treatments based on “post-genomic bioinformatics” (a virtually content-free buzzphrase if I’ve ever heard one) and “new approaches to human biology” (which isn’t much better). NGM plans to devote the funding to R&D spending over the next three years.

The company’s ties to the former Tularik — which was acquired by Amgen in 2004 — are worth noting. In addition to Goeddel, the company’s chief scientific officer, Jin-Long Chen, was formerly a VP of biology at Tularik, and then headed Amgen’s metabolic-disorders unit.

Heart, HIV drug maker Numerate acquires assets of Pharmix – I’ve updated this item and moved it into a standalone post here.

Next-gen sequencer VisiGen promises $1,000 genome by late 2009 – Does anyone else hear a bandwagon banging through town? Just three days after secretive Pacific Biosciences took the wraps off its high-speed sequencing effort, Houston-based VisiGen Biotechnologies laid down a new marker and said it plans to offer $1,000 sequencing of human genomes by the end of 2009 at the rate of roughly one genome a week.

The news, which comes courtesy of GenomeWeb, further turns up the pressure in the bragging-rights race to achieve the artificial “$1,000 genome” benchmark. More than a half-dozen companies have thrown their hats into the ring either explicitly or implicitly, each with its own complex approach to reading every one of the six billion DNA letters, or bases, in a human’s 23 pairs of chromosomes.

VisiGen was founded in 2000, and has received funding from Applied Biosystems and Houston’s SeqWright, as well as grants from the National Institutes of Health.

CalciMedica raises $5.5M for autoimmune drugs – San Diego’s CalciMedica, a biotech developing drugs for immune-related conditions, raised $5.5 million in a second funding round, VentureWire reports. Investors included Sanderling Ventures and SR One. We previously noted the startup’s first funding round here.

The company plans to attack autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and psoriasis by targeting a “calcium channel” — that is, a cellular mechanism that moves calcium in and out of cells — in immune-system components that govern the body’s adaptive immunity. That arm of the immune system sometimes goes haywire, producing autoimmune disease in which the body’s defenses attack normal tissue. CalciMedica acquired technology and drug candidates for targeting that calcium channel from TorreyPines Therapeutics in May.

TODAY’S HEADLINES:

• Cogentus Pharma raises $63M for blood thinners (release)
• Corthera draws $23M for heart-failure drug (release)
• Nanolymf seeks $2M for drug-delivery tech (release)
• LineaGen pulls in $5.6M for molecular diagnostics (release)

Cogentus Pharma raises $63M for blood thinners — Menlo Park, Calif.-based Cogentus Pharmaceuticals, a specialty pharma developing combined formulations of existing drugs, raised $62.5 million in a third funding round. Investors included Keffi Group, Prospect Venture Partners, Ridgeback Capital, Apothecary Capital and Pinnacle Ventures.

Cogentus aims to combine existing drugs in fixed doses in order to reduce side effects. The company’s lead candidate, CGT-2168, combines the blood thinner clopidogrel with omeprazol, a treatment that reduces gastrointestinal side effects. Cogentus is one of several specialty pharmaceutical companies pursuing this strategy, which does have the potential drawback that doctors may simply prescribe the drugs separately instead of paying extra for the combined formulation. We covered Horizon Therapeutics, which is doing the same thing with pain drugs, here.

Corthera draws $23M for heart-failure drug — San Mateo-based Corthera, a biotech developing a heart drug based on the hormone relaxin, raised $23 million in a third funding round. Investors included Caxton Advantage Life Sciences Fund, Domain Associates and Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers.

Corthera, formerly known as BAS Medical, hopes to use synthetic relaxin to treat acute heart failure and preeclampsia, a complication of pregnancy. We previously covered the company here.

Featured companies: Tenaxis Medical, Aspen MedTech, Biolex Therapeutics

Tenaxis closes up $5M for surgical sealants — Mountain View, Calif.-based Tenaxis Medical, a developer of glues and sealants for closing surgical incisions, raised $5 million in a second funding round, VentureWire reports (subscription required). Individual investors, including several limited partners in Magic Venture Capital, provided the funding.

Tenaxis began clinical trials of its first experimental product, a sealant for blood vessels, last month. The company plans to use the proceeds from the current funding to begin trials in Europe.

Aspen MedTech, a medical-device “incubator,” raises $1M — Three Arch Partners and Prospect Venture Partners co-led a $1 million funding round for Aspen MedTech, a Bellevue, Wash., shell company designed to incubate an as-yet undetermined medical-device startup, VentureWire reports. The one-shot incubator will be subsumed into the company it eventually gestates, unlike typical “evergreen” incubators designed to create several companies.

From the VentureWire story:

Aspen will consider technologies in a variety of large markets, including cardiovascular disease, orthopedics and women’s health. Aesthetics, a hot market, is also a possibility, though [Aspen general manager Daniel] Hawkins said the bar is high because competition there is already intense.

Biolex files for $70M IPO — Biolex Therapeutics, a Pittsboro, N.C. biotech focused on manufacturing complex proteins and optimized monoclonal antibodies in an aquatic-plant system, filed to raise up to $70 million in an IPO.

Biolex has three drug candidates, two of which appear to be new forms of existing biotech drugs — a time-release form of interferon alfa for treating hepatitis C and an antibody drug for use against non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Biolex has also developed a new clot-busting drug based on genetically engineered plasmin, a natural substance in the body that dissolves fibrin, a protein that holds clots together. Only the interferon has entered clinical trials.

Like most biotechs, Biolex has accumulated a large aggregate net loss, here amounting to $88.6 million as of March 31. Its annual burn rate — which I generally equate to operating losses — has risen steadily to $18.5 million in 2006 from $10.3 million in 2004.

Biolex acknowledges something in its risk-factor disclosure that I had been wondering about. The company states that “No product manufactured using a plant-based production system, including our LEX System, has received regulatory approval,” which is kind of interesting. There are a number of efforts afoot to produce protein-based biotech drugs in new types of genetically engineered cells, including yeast. Traditionally, such cells would produce proteins that lacked essential human features, such as particular arrangements of sugar molecules, which rendered them unsuitable as medicines.

NeoMend, an Irvine, Calif., biomaterials company focused on wound care, raised $6 million in a third funding round, VentureWire reports (subscription required). Investors included Prospect Venture Partners, Sanderling Ventures and other unidentified venture capitalists. Four million dollars in bridge loans from Prospect and Sanderling also converted into equity.

NeoMend is developing an adhesive gel it calls Pro/PEG that can be sprayed or injected into surgical or other wounds to close them up. The company said the funding proceeds would cover the launch of its first product, which is aimed at sealing up arterial injuries.

Roxro Pharmaceuticals, a Menlo Park, Calif., specialty pharmaceutical company focused on pain drugs, raised $42.7 million in a second funding round. The company’s release is here (PDF).

Founded in 1999, Roxro acquires discarded or failed drugs from other companies and pushes them through clinical development. Although I keep thinking the bloom has come off this particular trend, investors apparently can’t get enough of the strategy, at least to judge by this sizable round. The company’s lead candidate is ROX-888, a painkiller designed to be taken via an intranasal spray, which is currently in late-stage trials. The company plans to file for FDA approval of the drug in the first half of next year.

The round was led by Prospect Venture Partners and Sutter Hill Ventures, joined by Thomas Weisel Healthcare Venture Partners.