VentureBeat

TODAY’S HEADLINES:

• Aptamer-drug maker Archemix withdraws its $72.5 million IPO (Edgar)
• OraMetrix raises $20M for robotic orthodontic systems (peHUB)
• Microarray maker TeleChem goes public via reverse merger (release)
• BioVascular pulls in $11M for platelet-disease treatments (release)
• Cequent Pharma adds $4.5M for for RNAi drugs (VentureWire)
• CareSeek, online medical-rating service, gets $575K, looks for $5M (VentureWire)
• Satiogen takes in $700K for obesity treatment (VentureWire)
• Dilon Tech appoints Robert Moussa as CEO (release)

Aptamer-drug maker Archemix withdraws its $72.5 million IPO – I’ve expanded this news into a standalone item on the state of the life-science IPO market here.

OraMetrix raises $20M for robotic orthodontic systems – Richardson, Tex.-based OraMetrix, a maker of 3-D robotic systems for orthodontic use, raised $20 million in a new funding round, peHUB reports. The financing is either a third round (as peHUB puts it) or a sixth (as VentureWire reports based on an interview with the company’s CFO). Existing investors, including Rho Capital Partners, Versant Ventures, Brentwood Venture Capital and Star Ventures, provided the cash.

Founded in 1998, OraMetrix makes and sells what it calls the SureSmile system for orthodontic braces. After taking a 3-D scan of a patient’s mouth, an orthodontist can then use the system’s computer modeling to develop a treatment plan. A robotic system then precisely bends the “archwires” that push teeth around.

OraMetrix claims the system shortens the duration of treatment and reduces office visits. The company has sold the system since 2004 and told VentureWire that it has installed SureSmile for more than 200 doctors, but says it needs to roughly double that figure to reach profitability.

Microarray maker TeleChem goes public via reverse merger – TeleChem International, a Sunnyvale, Calif., maker of gene-chip microarrays that is also known as ArrayIt, went public via a reverse merger with Integrated Media Holdings. The companies don’t quite call it a reverse merger, but given that IMH shares have traded at around two cents since September, the company has a shareholder’s deficit of $1.5 million and noted in its latest quarterly filing that there is “substantial doubt” about its ability to remain a going concern, the dots aren’t all that hard to connect.

Technically, IMH acquired TeleChem’s existing shares in exchange for 35 million shares of the merged company, which will undergo a one for 30 reverse split. At yesterday’s IMH close of, yes, two cents, that values the deal at about $21 million.

BioVascular pulls in $11M for platelet-disease treatments – San Diego’s BioVascular, a specialty pharma focused on drugs for fighting blood clots related to heart surgery, raised $10.9 million in a third funding round. Investors included BB Biotech Ventures, Merck KGaA and Domain Associates.

The funds will allow BioVascular to complete early-stage trials of two drugs, saratin for the prevention of clotting in grafted vessels following heart-bypass operations, and BVI-007, a platelet-production inhibitor it acquired last year when it bought out the biotech Revitus.

Cequent Pharma adds $4.5M for for RNAi drugs – Cequent Pharmaceuticals, a Cambridge, Mass., developer of drugs based on the gene-silencing technique called RNA interference, added $4.5 million to its first funding round, VentureWire reports. The new cash, provided by existing investors Novartis Option Fund, Ampersand Ventures, Nexus Medical Partners and Pappas Ventures, brings Cequent’s total funding in the round to $13.5 million.

RNAi involves the use of short stretches of RNA that engage ancient cellular mechanisms for silencing the output of particular disease-related genes. RNA, however, doesn’t enter cells easily, so Cequent is working on a way to use genetically engineered, non-disease-causing bacteria that will enter human cells and produce the desired RNA molecules locally. We covered Cequent’s previous funding here.

According to a research report cited by Mountain View-based Teneros, the average business experiences seven hours of email downtime each year.

Can you survive without your email? Apparently those businesses can’t, and they hire firms like Teneros to provide “application continuity” for Microsoft Exchange, the software back-end behind the email systems of most corporations.

The product itself is a plug-in appliance, the Application Continuity Appliance (ACA) that kicks in within moments of a system failure, keeping the network moving until it can be repaired.

Teneros launched the ACA in August 2005, and appears to have made good headway since against more expensive competing options. It’s generally used by small- to medium-sized businesses.

The $40 million financing was led by Advanced Equities, with participation from previous investors Goldman Sachs, New Enterprise Associates, Sevin Rosen Funds and Star Ventures. It was Teneros’s fourth funding so far; the company has now raised a total of $84.5 million.

Music services have been slow to let mobile users pay to download music from the Internet, but that just changed, with Apple announcing that iPhone users can now do so.

They’ll be able to buy music from iTunes directly, no longer having to download to their home computers and then sync to the device.

At 99 cents, that’s attractive. Especially with Apple’s accompanying announcement that it has slashed the price of its popular 8 gigabye iPhone to $399, down from $599.

Meanwhile, Groove Networks, a company that has already been offering music downloads to mobile users, announced that it would fight on against Apple’s initiative by taking $6 million more in funding from venture capitalists.

Groove says its users have downloaded 35 million songs since 2004, striking distribution deals with Vodafone, MTS Allstream and Sony BMG to allow their subscribers to access Groove.

But its mission may be uphill going forward. It cost $2.50 to download a song on Groove, way more than iTunes’ 99-cent price. Groove does let you play your song on your cell phone and save a version to your PC for playing as well, however. The company sells songs from EMI, Warner Music International and some smaller labels.

Groove took the funding from ORIX Venture Finance. It has now raised a total of $32 million.

Former backers in include Egan Capital, Charles River Ventures, Kodiak Venture Partners, and Star Ventures.