VentureBeat

TODAY’S HEADLINES:

• Paris-based Stentys takes $18M for “bifurcated” stents (release)
• Blood analyzer IntelliDx raises $22M (PDF release)
• Cancer-test biotech Calderome changes name to VeraCyte (VentureWire)
• Predictive Biosciences names Peter Klemm as CEO (release)

Paris-based Stentys takes $18M for “bifurcated” stents – Stentys, a Paris-based medical device maker, raised $18 million in a second funding round. The company is developing “bifurcated” stents intended to prop open clogged arteries at blood-vessel junctions.

The startup said the funding will allow it to complete clinical trials of its stents and to win European regulatory approval for them. Stentys doesn’t seem to have given any indication whether or when it might seek approval in the U.S. or other markets as well.

Scottish Equity Partners and Sofinnova Partners provided the funding.

Blood analyzer IntelliDx raises $22M –It’s starting to look like Diabetes Week here at VentureBeat LifeScience.

IntelliDx (no Web site), a Boston Santa Clara, Calif., startup with a new type of blood-sugar analyzer for hospitalized diabetics, raised $21.5 million in a fourth funding round (PDF link). Investors included HLM Venture Partners, 3i Ventures, Giza Ventures, Ascend Ventures, Aurum Ventures, Sequel Venture Partners and Hunt BioVentures.

IntelliDx makes a chemical sensor-based blood analyzer for use in hospital intensive-care units. Much like the Luminous Medical spectroscopic blood-glucose analyzer we covered yesterday, the IntelliDx device aims to monitor blood sugar hourly in diabetic patients. The idea, again, is to keep a closer eye on hyperglycemia in a critical-care setting, since runaway blood glucose often increases the chance of complications and lengthier hospital stays.

Cancer-test biotech Calderome changes name to VeraCyte – Calderome, a stealthy cancer-test startup in South San Francisco, has changed its name to VeraCyte (no Web site), VentureWire reports. The new name presumably reflects the company’s focus on cell-based cancer diagnostics, as we described last week.

The VentureWire story goes on to reprise VeraCyte’s $12 million fundraising, which we also covered last week. VeraCyte has two employees, and recently extended job offers to three other individuals, the news service reported.

CORRECTED: The IntelliDx item initially located the company in Boston, not Santa Clara. The company’s release was datelined Boston because it originated with HLM Ventures. Apologies for the error.

Woburn, Mass.-based BioVex, a biotech working on new ways to attack cancer and infections, raised $22 million in a fifth funding round. Triathlon Medical Ventures led the round, joined by New Science Ventures, Forbion Capital Ventures, Avalon Ventures, Credit Agricole Private Equity, GeneChem Management, Innoven Partners and Scottish Equity Partners.

BioVex is developing so-called oncolytic viruses, which are designed to infect and destroy tumor cells — long a promising but never-proven anti-cancer technique. The company put an unusual twist on the concept by adding a gene to a herpes simplex virus that expresses GM-CSF (granulocyte macrophage-colony stimulating factor), a molecule that stimulates a strong immune response. Ideally, this virus should infect tumor cells while leaving healthy cells alone, then hijack the tumor cells’ own internal machinery to manufacture GM-CSF, stimulating an immune response that should also be directed at the tumor cells.

That experimental drug, OncoVex GM-CSF, is currently in mid-stage human tests against skin cancer and early tests against head and neck cancer. BioVex is also developing a vaccine against genital herpes. The company had filed to go public last year, but withdrew its proposed offering last October.