VentureBeat

TODAY’S HEADLINES:

• Immune-system specialty pharma Circassia raises £11M (release)
• Cancer-biomarker biotech CS-Keys takes in $6.3M (release)
• Neuro-robotic device maker Myomo receives $3M (VentureWire)
• Micropharma draws C$1.8M for nutraceutical delivery (VentureWire)
• Avalon Labs gets $66M for disposable life-support components (release)
• Gloucester Pharma names Alan Colowick as CEO (release)
• ConforMIS names Philipp Lang as CEO (release)
• Pharma-marketing firm TargetRx names Craig Scott as CEO (release)

Immune-system specialty pharma Circassia raises £11M – Circassia, an Oxford, England biotech focused on immune-system disorders, raised £11 million ($21.8 million) in a second funding round. Investors included Goldman Sachs, Invesco Perpetual, Imperial Innovations and Lansdowne Partners.

The company is currently developing a range of allergy treatments by “retraining” the immune system not to react to allergens such as cat dander, dust mites, ragweed and grass. Circassia’s approach is to isolate short stretches of the allergy-causing proteins and expose them to the immune system’s antigen-presenting cells, attracting other cells that, though a complex biochemical dance, teach the immune system to “tolerate” the original protein.

Circassia is “preparing to complete” mid-stage trials ‘of its lead candidate, which is aimed at treating allergy to cat dander. The company says its technology should also be useful in preventing the rejection of transplanted organs.

Cancer-biomarker biotech CS-Keys takes in $6.3M – CS-Keys, an Indianapolis biotech working on protein-based “biomarkers,”, raised $6.3 million in a first funding round. Investors included Triathlon Medical Ventures, Clarian Health Ventures, Prolog Ventures and Ceres Venture Fund.

CS-Keys aims to find proteins that indicate the presence and status of tumors, and which can serve as a diagnostic for early detection or for monitoring the status of cancer patients. The company says its first product will be a pathology stain for detection of proliferating cell nuclear antigen in biopsied tumor samples. As a followup, the company intends to pursue a blood test for detecting the return of tumors in patients whose cancer has gone into remission.

Neuro-robotic device maker Myomo receives $3M – Boston’s Myomo, a “neurorobotics” company designing technology to help patients learn to regain the use of weakened or partially paralyzed limbs, raised $3 million in a second funding round, VentureWire reports. Angel investors provided the funding.

Founded in 2006, Myomo has developed a “smart” elbow brace for aiming to relearn how to move stroke-impaired arms. The brace senses electrical nerve signals in the skin’s surface, generated when patients try to move an arm, and then electromechanically moves the arm as the patient intended. The idea is to provide real-time feedback so that patients can re-educate their muscles in order to regain motor control.

The Myomo device has been studied in six patients, who demonstrated a statistically significant improvement in two measures of movement. The company has two additional studies underway in chronic and sub-acute stroke patients. The device has been cleared for hospital use, although Myomo eventually hopes to win approval for home use as well.

Myomo hopes to add another $8 million from venture capitalists by this summer, in what may either be a third round or an extension of the second. The current funding will allow the company to roll out its device to medical facilities nationwide.

Featured companies: Formac Pharmaceuticals, Pradama, Protein Sciences, SantoSolve, Scandius BioMedical

UPDATED: Expanded items on Protein Sciences, SantoSolve, Scandius and Pradama.

Vaccine maker Protein Sciences gets $1M — Protein Sciences, a Meriden, Conn., biotech working on a faster way to make flu vaccines, raised $1 million in a convertible-debt offering. Diamyd Medical, a Stockholm-based biotech focused on diabetes, provided the funding.

The funding boosts Diamyd’s total investment in Protein Sciences to $4 million. Conversion of its earlier investment made the Swedish company Protein Sciences’ second-largest shareholder. According to VentureWire (subscription required), Protein Sciences had previously raised $9 million since mid-2004. That doesn’t appear to count the company’s earlier incarnation as MicroGeneSys, a controversial AIDS-vaccine company that successfully lobbied Congress for federal funding to test its product in the early 1990s. (It failed, and the company appears to have largely started anew since then.)

Protein Sciences’ big claim to fame is its work on “recombinant” flu vaccines, which can be genetically engineered quickly instead of grown using whole flu virus in chicken eggs or animal cells. The jury is still out on whether recombinant vaccines really work well, despite periodic waves of hype; my coverage of the last one involving Protein Sciences is here. the U.S. biotech is also manufacturing proteins for Diamyd products such as a therapeutic diabetes vaccine.

Sports-medicine specialist Scandius BioMed acquired by Covidien — Scandius BioMedical, a Littleton, Mass.-based medical-device startup focused on sports injuries, was acquired by Covidien, a publicly traded healthcare-products company in North Haven, Conn. The release is here; the companies didn’t disclose financial terms.

Scandius marketed several products for the reconstruction and healing of ligaments and bones that are often damaged in competitive athletics. According to the company’s Web site, it has raised $13.3 million in equity financing since its founding in 2000, with investors including Commerce Health Ventures, Ivy Healthcare Capital, KBL Healthcare Ventures and Stockton Partners.

Norway’s SantoSolve receives $7M for pain drugs — SantoSolve, an Oslo biotech working on a new class of pain drugs, raised $7 million in a new funding round. Investors included DnBNor, Gezina, Glastad Invest, Teknoinvest and InnovationsKapital.

SantoSolve, founded in 2002, said the funds would allow it to move its leading drug candidate, an arthritis pain drug called 2PX, into late-stage human testing. The company is also testing the drug against neuropathic pain.

Osteoporosis drug maker Pradama raises $1.2M — Louisville, Ky.-based Pradama, a biotech developing an oral drug for osteoporesis, raised $1.2 million in a first funding round, VentureWire reports. Investors included Kentucky Seed Capital Fund, Kentucky Science and Technology Corp., Triathlon Medical Ventures, Commonwealth Seed Capital and Cardinal Venture Fund.

From VentureWire:

Pradama, based in Louisville, Ky., is developing a means of targeting bone-building drugs for osteoporosis to the skeleton. To do this, it links anabolic therapies to a derivative of tetracycline that homes in on bone. One drug it’s considering using with the targeting technology is an estrogen derivative, Pierce said, though other undisclosed therapies are also being studied.

OTHER HEADLINES OF NOTE:

• Belgium’s Formac Pharma pulls in €1.7M for new drug-delivery tech (release)
• Osteoporosis drug maker Pradama raises $1.2M (VentureWire, sub req’d)

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.