VentureBeat

TODAY’S HEADLINES:

• TransEnterix gets $21M for minimally invasive GI surgery (release)
• Stem-cell developer Bioheart’s IPO postponed (Forbes.com)
• Medical-practice software provider AdvancedMD acquired by Francisco Partners (release)
• Peptimmune draws $8.2M for MS drug trials (release)
• Drug-delivery co. Talima Thera names Martin Babler CEO (release)
• Alimera Sciences aims for autumn IPO to fund diabetic eye-disease drug (VentureWire, sub req’d)

TransEnterix gets $21M for minimally invasive GI surgery — TransEnterix (no Web site), a Research Triangle Park, N.C., device maker developing tools for “natural orifice” gastrointestinal surgery, raised $21 million in a first funding round. Investors included SV Life Sciences, Parish Capital Advisers and Synergy Life Science Partners.

According to the Web site for Synecor, a North Carolina incubator that founded TransEnterix, the company is at work on tools and devices for minimally invasive “trans-oral” surgery using an endoscope passed through the mouth and down the esophagus. This procedure is designed to enable surgeries through the stomach wall and other unspecified “natural entry points,” potentially in a way that could supplant minimally invasive laparoscopic procedures that require entry through the abdominal wall. Patients would be consciously sedated during the procedure.

The funding will allow TransEnterix to “deliver” its first-generation tools, presumably for use in clinical trials, and to fund development of next-generation devices.

Stem-cell developer Bioheart’s IPO postponed — Bioheart, a Sunrise, Fla., developer of a stem-cell-based heart therapy, has postponed its troubled IPO. Although the company doesn’t seem to have officially yanked it yet, odds are now good that it will.

Bioheart’s woes started last October, when it abruptly slashed its offering price and fired its underwriters. The company’s IPO has lingered on life support ever since. We gave readers some good reasons to be skeptical about Bioheart — which, notably, is backed by former football great Dan Marino, among others — as long ago as last July.

Medical-practice software provider AdvancedMD acquired by Francisco Partners — AdvancedMD, a Salt Lake City provider of Web-based medical-practice management software — now there’s a mouthful — announced that it was acquired by the private-equity firm Francisco Partners. Financial terms weren’t disclosed.

AdvancedMD, founded in 1999, sells a series of Web-based products designed to handle administration, billing and electronic medical records for physicians. The company had previously raised venture funding from Dominion Ventures, Windward Ventures and Hunter Capital. Francisco has already named a new CEO, and said that it intends to “leverage” the company’s success with “additional resources” to accelerate its growth.

Peptimmune draws $8.2M for MS drug trials — Cambridge, Mass.-based Peptimmune, a biotech at work on drugs for autoimmune and metabolic conditions, raised $8.2 million in the first stage of its fourth funding round. The company anticipates closing a second tranche in the second quarter. Investors included New Enterprise Associates, MPM Capital, Hunt Ventures, Boston Medical Investors and Silicon Valley Bank Capital.

Peptimmune is focused on using protein fragments known as peptides to disrupt or otherwise modulate immune-system reactions associated with disease. Its lead candidate, PI-2301, is a “random sequence” peptide similar in certain respects to the approved drug Copaxone, which Peptimmune is currently testing against multiple sclerosis in early-stage human tests.

Alimera Sciences aims for autumn IPO to fund diabetic eye-disease drug — Alimera Sciences, an Alpharetta, Ga., biotech focused on eye disease, is contemplating an IPO this fall, VentureWire reports (subscription required). The funds will ideally support the launch of the company’s first innovative product, a treatment for a blinding complication of diabetes known as diabetic macular edema.

Alimera, which started life as a specialty pharma that resold over-the-counter eye products, began development of its current candidate, Medidur, in 2005. The treatment, co-developed with the nanotech company pSvidia, is a tiny structure designed to be injected into the back of the eye, where it steadily emits a corticosteroid called fluocinolone acetonide. The idea is to provide the smallest possible quantity of the steroid directly to the back of the eye, where a fluid buildup in the retina steadily obscures vision. Many ophthalmologists currently treat the condition with steroid injections, although no drugs are approved for the disease.

Medidur is currently in late-stage, phase III human tests. Alimera expects data from that trial in late 2009 and could file for approval in 2010.

Oraya, a secretive Menlo Park, Calif., medical-device startup, has struck again. The company raised $18 million in what is presumably a second funding round, VentureWire reports (subscription required). Investors included Synergy Life Science Partners (see yesterday’s coverage of this newish VC firm here) and Essex Woodlands Health Ventures. We covered Oraya’s first round of funding last June.

VentureWire says the company is working on some sort of unspecified ophthalmology device, which is certainly more than we knew last year. Oraya’s founder and CEO is Michael Gertner, a surgeon and serial medical-device entrepreneur who is also a consultant to the Biodesign Program and Department of Surgery at Stanford. (He’s also an adjunct partner at Essex Woodlands, which has a somewhat more detailed — and possibly out-of-date — bio for him here.)

Eye disease would be something of a departure for Gertner, who has previously founded five other device startups, all of which still appear to be keeping themselves largely under wraps (for instance, any Web sites tend to be uninformative stubs):

• Medlogics Device Corporation — Develops non-polymer drug-coated stents for treating arterial blockages. Founded in 2003.
• Allux Medical — Develops electro-optical devices for allergic rhinitis (hay fever). Founded in 2004.
• Minimus Surgical Systems — Develops unspecified electromedical equipment, although these patent applications suggest the company is working on implantable, remote-controlled balloon devices that reduce stomach volume for the treatment of obesity.
• Hydrocardia — Apparently named after an obscure medical term for excess fluid in the pericardial sac that surrounds the heart. No Web site.
• Gem Biosystems — No further information beyond the fact that it raised $1 million from Essex Woodland in 2006

A quick look through Gertner’s patent applications and issued patents doesn’t turn up too many additional clues as to what Oraya might be doing. He does have one issued patent and at least two applications dealing with what appears to be a valved “fistula,” a blood-vessel graft used to ease the trauma of routine needle insertions in kidney dialysis — but of course that has nothing to do with ophthalmology. (In fact, this technology could easily be related to Gem’s business.)

In any event, it’s intriguing to note that even the oldest of Gertner’s companies appears to have no marketed products and continues to fly mostly under the radar. Which suggests to me either that Gertner or his investors simply have a real passion for secrecy — which is entirely understandable — or that perhaps things haven’t gone quite as well as planned. In any event, Gertner looks like someone worth keeping an eye on. (Hat tip to Mark Wendman, who first pointed out Gertner’s work to me.)

According to VentureWire, the new funding will carry Oraya into clinical trials. Gertner told the newswire only that the company expects to begin human tests of its devices “shortly,” so who knows what that means.