VentureBeat

TODAY’S HEADLINES:

• HealthExtras buys venture-backed PBM HospiScript for $100M (release)
• Urological device-maker NeoTract adds $7.4M (VentureWire)
• RNAi-drug startup Intradigm seeks $35M (VentureWire)
• Israel’s Arbel Medical raises $3.5M for tumor cryotherapy (release)

HealthExtras buys venture-backed PBM HospiScript for $100M — HospiScript Services, a Montgomery, Ala., prescription-benefits manager, agreed to be acquired by HealthExtras of Rockville, Md. HealthExtras will pay $100 million in cash for the venture-backed firm, which services the hospice industry.

HospiScript had raised at least $4 million in funding, according to VentureWire. That amount represents a 2005 round that involved Advantage Capital Alabama and Waveland NCP Alabama Ventures. The company declined to say more about its funding history.

Both companies manage the use of prescription drugs — HealthExtras for corporate, government and nonprofit health plans, HospiScript for hospices — in ways that are intended to reduce costs. HealthExtras said the acquisition will help it expand in the fast-growing hospice space.

Urological device-maker NeoTract adds $7.4M – Pleasanton, Calif.,-based NeoTract (no Web site), a devicemaker focused on urological problems, added $7.4 million to its first round of financing, VentureWire reports. The new funding brings that round to a total of $21.4 million.

New Enterprise Associates provided the cash.

NeoTract is working on a device to treat benign prostate hyperplasia, which is a non-cancerous growth of the prostate. The company doesn’t describe its device, although it says the product should enter clinical trials next year.

TODAY’S HEADLINES:

• AGI Dermatics takes in $5M for skincare products (release)
• Myconostica raises £3.9 for fungal diagnostics (GenomeWeb)
  
• Germany’s Noxxon gets €1M grant for aptamer drugs (release)

AGI Dermatics takes in $5M for skincare products – Freeport, N.Y.-based AGI Dermatics, a startup concentrated on skincare products, raised $5 million in a new funding round. Investors included Trevi Health Ventures and Spring Mountain Capital.

AGI makes cosmetic ingredients and is working on developing topical pharmaceutical lotions as well. Its leading drug candidate is called T4N5 Liposome Lotion, which AGI says includes a DNA-repair enzyme intended to repair ultraviolet damage to the skin. The company is currently testing the product as a preventive treatment for skin cancer.

Germany’s Noxxon gets €1M grant for aptamer drugs — Noxxon, a German biotech aiming to make drugs from nucleic-acid snippets called aptamers, received a grant from Germany’s Federal Ministry of Education and Research. The €1 million ($1.6 million) grant is intended to support Noxxon’s drug-discovery program, which we covered at greater length last May.

Myconostica raises £3.9M for fungal diagostics – Myconostica, a U.K. biotech that spun out of the University of Manchester, raised £3.9 million ($7.7 million) in a third funding round, GenomeWeb reports. Investors included Amphion Innovations, Nexus Medical Partners, and Innoven Partenaires.

The company is working on rapid diagnostic tests for life-threatening fungal infections. Its first product is a test for several types of fungal infection that is nearing approval in Europe, and which Myconostica thinks could receive U.S. approval by the fourth quarter.