VentureBeat

Here’s the latest action:

Icahn haz board members? – Billionaire investor Carl Icahn is already on Yahoo’s board, but now he needs to fill the two complimentary seats given to him by Yahoo. Edward Meyer and Frank Biondi are the two front runners in AllThingsD’s Kara Swisher’s mind, but it could be her wild card, John Chapple, who gets to sit next to Biondi, according to The Wall Street Journal. They all kind of look the same anyway and all have the same basic title: “Former CEO of ______” (fill in the Fortune 500 company).

YouTube nixing live streaming service plans? — The service would add to costs, and there is still no good way to monetize any video on the Internet, let alone live streaming video. Live videos are also another potential legal headache in keeping copyrighted material off of streams, as a source tells Silicon Alley Insider.

Computer scientists come to defense of DefCon hackers — Eleven computer scientists from around the country have come out in support of the three MIT students that were banned from speaking at DefCon. They’d like the gag order imposed by a Massachusetts judge on the trio lifted, says Wired.

Silk Road adds to its first round — The stealthy medical device company is taking an additional $2.4 million, bringing its total series A round to $3.4 million, VentureWire reports. The round was led by Vertical Group.

More powerful MacBook Air soon? — It seems inevitable that Apple will update its super thin computer sometime soon. A report by PhoneNews (and republished by Engadget) says the new version is imminent, with an Intel Core 2 Duo chip of the Penryn variety. That should make the device much more powerful.

Vudu gets 99 cent movies on demand — Well, if porn can’t save Vudu, perhaps this move can, says Mashable. Meanwhile, another online movie service starting with a ‘V’, Vongo, is gone, says NewTeeVee.

Google Map Maker rolls out to 40 new island nations — And Google keeps getting the web at large to do their work for them, without that side effect of money changing hands.

U.S. Air Force halts cyber program — Maybe it realized that cyberspace wasn’t a dimension that F-16s can dominate. NextGov has more.

iTunes Movies come to Australia and New Zealand — MacRumors has more.

TODAY’S HEADLINES:

• PolyRemedy, developer of robotic wound care, takes in $25M (release)
• Bacchus Vascular gets $15M for clot-busting device (VentureWire)
• Protein-evolution company Modular Genetics gets $1.2M (VentureWire)
• PharmatrophiX gets $300K for Alzheimer’s disease prevention drugs (release)
• Light Sciences Oncology withdraws IPO (Edgar)
• Arizona’s Translational Accelerator launches $20M life-sciences fund (bizjournals.com)
• Cornea-reshaper Avedro gets $7M (VentureWire)
• Gastrotech Pharma gets $6M in wake of Lilly deal (VentureWire)
• Biomaterials maker MiMedx goes public via reverse merger (release)
• Acrongenomics to complete acquisition of Molecular Vision by the end of Q1 (release)

PolyRemedy, developer of robotic wound care, takes in $25M – Mountain View, Calif.-based PolyRemedy, a developer of systems that robotically manufacture wound dressings for patients, raised $25 million in a second funding round. Investors included Advanced Technology Ventures, IDG Ventures Boston, MedVenture Associates and Harris & Harris Group.

PolyRemedy has been keeping quiet about its work until now, but the company’s release lays out its strategy, which is to fabricate customized wound dressings at the “point of care” — here, apparently, doctors’ offices and home-care situations. The goal is to provide better treatment for chronic wounds such as diabetic ulcers, a common complication of diabetes that can manifest in the feet and other extremities as a result of nerve damage and poor blood circulation. The company claims its technology has been proven in clinical trials, but hasn’t provided any details.

Bacchus Vascular gets $15M for clot-busting device – Bacchus Vascular, a Santa Clara, Calif., developer of devices for local drug treatment of blood clots, raised $15 million in an extension of a recent recapitalization round, VentureWire reports. Investors included Vertical Group, Warburg Pincus, Kaiser Permanente Venture Development and Bacchus founder Thomas J. Fogarty.

Bacchus makes and markets a system it calls Trellis, which is a minimally invasive, catheter-based device consisting of two inflatable balloons and a “dispersion wire.” Physicians thread the catheter through the clot and inflate balloons at each end of it, then infuse a clot-busting drug directly into the clot. The dispersion wire then mechanically helps break up the clot, whose remains are then sucked out through the catheter. Bacchus is currently focused on deep-vein thrombosis, which are large clots usually located in the legs. Its device was approved in 2005, and the company intends to use the new funds to expand its marketing efforts.

Bacchus restarted with a $7.6 million recapitalization in June 2006 after apparently exhausting the patience of two initial investors, Three Arch Partners and De Novo Ventures, who haven’t participated in subsequent fundings. Prior to the recapitalization, Bacchus had raised $40 million, according to VentureWire.

Protein-evolution company Modular Genetics gets $1.2M – Modular Genetics, a Cambridge, Mass., biotech that engineers new proteins with enhanced function, raised $1.2 million toward an expected $5 million fourth funding round, VentureWire reports. Individual investors provided the funding.

Modular makes a gene-engineering system it calls the CombiGenex that can shuffle and recombine genes in order to make modified or novel proteins. By making thousands of slightly different molecules and then screening for the ones with improved functions, Modular aims to “evolve” new proteins for therapeutic uses.

PharmatrophiX gets $300K for Alzheimer’s disease prevention drugs – San Francisco’s PharmatrophiX (no Web site), a biotech working on drugs that prevent neurodegenerative disease, received a $300,000 grant from the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation. Founded by Stanford researcher Frank Longo, PharmatrophiX is developing a class of drugs that mimic the activity of proteins called neurotrophins, which aid in the development, health and survival of neurons.

Light Sciences Oncology withdraws IPO – Bellevue, Wash.-based Light Sciences Oncology, a developer of light-activated chemotherapy, withdrew its $96.6 million IPO, citing “unfavorable market conditions.” Light Sciences becomes the seventh life-science startup to yank an IPO filing this year.

Light Sciences has kept hope alive for an awfully long time. The company originally filed its registration statement in April 2006, but hasn’t amended it since September of that year. Light Sciences raised $30 million in a second funding round last July, despite its still-active IPO registration.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this item misstated PolyRemedy’s systems as “robotically apply[ing] wound dressings.” I’ve restated that to match the description in the second paragraph, which accurately describes the systems.

Entrigue Surgical, a San Antonio, Tex., medical-devices maker, raised $6.3 million in a first funding round, VentureWire reports (subscription requires), crediting the San Antonio Express-News (no link available). Vertical Group and Prism VentureWorks provided the investment.

According to Entrigue’s bare-bones Web site — which features little more than a quick marketing blurb and a clock counting down to a “revolution” promised 65 days from now — and the Express-News item, Entrigue is developing devices and biomaterials for head and neck surgeons designed for ear, nose and throat applications.

A few more details from the News-Express item, which I had to dig up in Nexis/Lexis:

Fred Dinger III is in demand. Last July, Dinger, then CEO of Osteobiologics Inc., sold the medical device company to London-based Smith & Nephew PLC, an orthopedic biomedical firm, for $72.3 million….

A few months after selling Osteobiologics, Dinger formed Concept to Market, known as C2M, with four former co-workers. C2M is a biotechnology-consulting firm that works for Warburg Pincus in New York and The Vertical Group in New Jersey. C2M advises other biotechnology companies nationwide. Yet Dinger wasn’t content with just advising others. He wanted to run a company in San Antonio.

That’s when Entrigue Surgical Inc., a Boston-based startup focused on head and neck surgery, tried to recruit him as CEO. He told its officers that if they moved it to San Antonio, his team would run it. They agreed. Entrigue Surgical, with 10 employees, develops biomaterials and medical instruments for head and neck surgeons. Dinger just raised $6.3 million in venture capital for Entrigue Surgical.

There aren’t too many companies focused on otaryngology devices. One other is Menlo Park, Calif.-based Acclarent, a designer of a sinus-treatment device, which we last wrote about here.