VentureBeat

TODAY’S HEADLINES:

• Gene-silencing developer Santaris raises €20M (PDF release)
• Consumer-driven healthcare manager RedBrick Health prescribed $15M (release)
• Cardiac Dimensions takes in $36M for heart-valve device (release)
• TcLand Expressions gets €8.2M for biomarkers (PDF release)
• TheraQuest Bio gets $3M for pain drugs (release)
• Brain-software maker NeuroTrax visualizes $1.5M (VentureWire)
• ActivBiotics selling off assets after clot-busting drug failure (release)
• Nanostart buys stake in Singapore’s Curiox, a drug-discovery tech firm (release)
• Respiratory biotech Altair Thera gets additional funding (VentureWire)
• Specialty pharma Prometheus Labs files for $100M IPO (Edgar)
• Sirtris co-founder David Sinclair joins Lux Capital as venture partner (PDF release)

Gene-silencing developer Santaris raises €20M — Denmark’s Santaris Pharma, a developer of gene-silencing drugs, raised €20 million ($30 million) (PDF) in a third financing round. Investors included Gilde Healthcare Partners, BankInvest, Novo, LD, Forbion Capital Partners, Global Life Science Venture, Sunstone Capital, Seventure, Omega, Innovation Capital and members of the Company’s board and management. Gilde contributed €7.5 million to the round.

Santaris is pursuing an “antisense” strategy for turning off particular disease-related genes using synthetic strands of nucleic acid, which bind to and deactivate the messenger RNA molecules that are crucial to gene activity. (Technically, the mRNA plays a key role in the manufacture of a gene’s protein or proteins, which in disease states are often either malformed or overproduced. The drug molecule is a complement to the mRNA’s nucleic-acid sequence, which in DNA chemistry makes it an “antisense” molecule.)

Whereas biotechs working on antisense drugs have traditionally used strands of DNA — often chemically modified to improve their durability and cell-penetrating abilities — to block gene activity, Santaris has produced what it claims is a unique RNA analogue that it calls a “locked nucleic acid.” (The company goes into detail here.) The Santaris molecule, which combines LNA and DNA, is supposed to bind RNA in three dimensions, presumably boosting its binding ability and therefore potency.

Santaris is first targeting chronic lymphocytic leukemia, and says its drug candidate has already demonstrated initial safety and efficacy in an early-stage human test. The company has several other candidates in preclinical development, as well as two other molecules it licensed to Enzon Pharmaceuticals, one of which has also begun human testing against cancer.

For a more detailed look at antisense, see our coverage of Excaliard Pharmaceuticals, a biotech that licensed a slew of technology from antisense pioneer Isis Pharmaceuticals, here.

Consumer-driven healthcare manager RedBrick Health prescribed $15M — RedBrick Health, a Minneapolis healthcare company promoting “consumer-oriented” plans that shift much of the financial responsibility for medical care to individuals, raised $15 million in a second funding round. Investors included Fidelity Ventures, Highland Capital Partners and Versant Ventures.

RedBrick aims to help companies set up consumer-directed healthcare plans, which are also known as “defined contribution” schemes in that they limit the financial exposure of employers, who simply make regular contributions to employee “health savings accounts.” These plans, obviously, put the financial onus on individuals, who pay for their own medical care out of these accounts, in contrast to traditional “defined benefit” plans in which individuals pay premiums for comprehensive health coverage. In theory, these consumer-oriented plans should hold down healthcare costs by making individuals more “responsible” users of medical care; in practice, sick patients are often in a terrible position to be good medical “consumers,” and the plans have have proven generally unpopular to boot.

That hasn’t slowed RedBrick or its backers. The company will use the funding to continue expanding its efforts to sell and manage consumer-directed healthcare plans, which RedBrick somewhat misleadingly insists on calling “consumer-owned” healthcare. (Such plans usually couple health-savings accounts with a high-deductible insurance plan.) The company recently announced deals with several new client companies, although none are exactly what you’d call high profile firms — their ranks include the Ridgeview Medical Center in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, which is switching its employees to a RedBrick-supported plan, and Welch Allyn, a medical-device manufacturer in Skaneateles Falls, N.Y., which is doing likewise.

Cardiac Dimensions takes in $36M for heart-valve device – Cardiac Dimensions, a Kirkland, Wash., developer of heart-valve devices, raised $35.5 million in a fourth financing round. Investors included Johnson & Johnson Development, Lumira Capital, Mitsubishi UFJ Capital, West River Capital, Montgomery & Co., Frazier Healthcare Ventures, Interwest Partners, MPM Capital, and Polaris Venture Partners.

Cardiac Dimensions is working on an implantable device designed to reshape the heart’s mitral valve, which in heart-failure patients sometimes weakens and allows blood to swish backward through the heart’s chambers. We’ve covered several other startups working on mitral-valve devices, including Evalve and Cardiosolutions.

Featured companies: Ablynx, Cardiosolutions, Carigent Thereapeutics, Elusys, Genome Corp., GlobeImmune, Novazone, Targanta Therapeutics, Waterfront Media

UPDATED at 5:45am on 9/27/07

GlobeImmune raises $41M for immune-system therapies — GlobeImmune, a Louisville, Colo., biotech focused on new forms of immunotherapy to treat viral infections and cancer, raised $41.2 million in a third funding round. Investors included Wexford Capital, Celgene, the Mellon Family Investment Company, the Richard King Mellon Foundation, Eminent Venture Capital, Boston Life Science Venture, WRF Capital, HealthCare Ventures, Morgenthaler Ventures, Sequel Venture Partners, Lilly Ventures, Medica Venture Partners, Adams Street Partners, Biogen Idec, Pac-Link Bioventures, China Investment and Development, Yasuda Enterprise Development, Partners Healthcare, and GC&H Investments.

GlobeImmune’s experimental drugs are based on genetically engineered yeast cells, which have been altered to produce proteins that stimulate the immune system to attack diseased cells. The company’s lead product targets hepatitis C, and has completed early-stage human trials. Another drug is intended for use in pancreatic cancer.

Waterfront Media pulls in $25M for online health info — New York’s Waterfront Media, which bills itself as the largest privately held provider of online health information, raised $25 million in a fourth round of funding. Investors included Scale Venture Partners, Foundation Capital, Rho Ventures, Time Warner Ventures, BEV Capital, and Neocarta Ventures.

Waterfront said it will use the funds to expand its Everyday Health Network, a health-information portal, and to make acquisitions in the goal of becoming the “number one health destination” on the Web.

Novazone seeks $20M for food-safety tech — Novazone, a Livermore, Calif., developer of food-safety technology, is looking to raise $20 million in a third funding round, VentureWire reports (subscription required). Novazone is developing an ozone-based disinfectant for food and water purification. The company previously raised $7 million in 2006 from Chrysalix Energy, Foundation Capital and Grauer Capital.

Cardiosolutions raises $7M for heart device — Stoughton, Mass.-based Cardiosolutions, a medical-device maker focused on minimally invasive repairs to the heart’s mitral valve, raised $7 million in a first funding round. BioVentures Investors led the round.

The company’s device is intended to restore function to the valve that separates the two left chambers of the heart without open-heart surgery. Cardiosolutions was founded in 2006 by STD Med, a Stoughton-based medical-technology firm.

Elusys wins $12M contract for anthrax treatment — Pine Brook, N.J.-based Elusys, a biotech focused on antibody-based treatments for infectious disease, won a $12 million federal contract that will support development of its anthrax treatment Anthim. That treatment targets the so-called “protective antigen” component of anthrax, theoretically blocking the bacteria’s ability to produce fatal levels of toxin.

Ablynx wins €1.9M grant for miniature antibodies — Belgium’s Ablynx, a biotech working to devise new therapies using miniature antibody molecules, received a €1.9 million ($2.6 million) grant from the Institute for the Promotion of Innovation by Science and Technology in Flanders. The company said the funding would allow it to pursue new uses for its “nanobodies” and to expand its intellectual-property portfolio.

Genome Corp. raises $250K for new sequencing technology — Providence, R.I.-based Genome Corp. raised $250,000 in seed financing to extend development of a new high-speed DNA sequencing technology. The Slater Technology Fund provided the financing.

Nanotech-drug developer Carigent Therapeutics raises seed funding — Yale spinout Carigent Therapeutics, a New Haven, Conn., biotech working on a nanoparticle-based drug technology, raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding, VentureWire reports. Saint Simeon Marketing e Investimentos provided the funding in May.

The idea is that engineered nanoparticles can specifically target particular proteins, theoretically making them ideal “carriers” for other drug molecules that attack cancer, infectious pathogens or other other disease-related substances. The company has also secured $250,000 in grants from the National Cancer Institute and the National Science Foundation, and plans to target cancer with its first product, it told VentureWire.

Antibiotic maker Targanta sets IPO price range — Cambridge, Mass.-based antibiotic developer Targanta Therapeutics said it now hopes to raise up to $92.6 million in an IPO by selling shares at a price of $12 to $14 apiece. Targanta has previously expected to pull in $86.3 million; I wrote about some of the risks inherent in the company’s plans to win FDA approval for an in-licenced antibiotic called oritavancin that it hasn’t even tested itself here.

So far, Targanta seems to have managed to assure investors that it can overcome those challenges, which include some potentially strong competition from a variety of sources. Its offering will still serve as a good test of the strength of the biotech IPO market, which has been iffy for well over a year.