VentureBeat

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.

TODAY’S HEADLINES:

• Aptamer-drug maker Archemix withdraws its $72.5 million IPO (Edgar)
• OraMetrix raises $20M for robotic orthodontic systems (peHUB)
• Microarray maker TeleChem goes public via reverse merger (release)
• BioVascular pulls in $11M for platelet-disease treatments (release)
• Cequent Pharma adds $4.5M for for RNAi drugs (VentureWire)
• CareSeek, online medical-rating service, gets $575K, looks for $5M (VentureWire)
• Satiogen takes in $700K for obesity treatment (VentureWire)
• Dilon Tech appoints Robert Moussa as CEO (release)

Aptamer-drug maker Archemix withdraws its $72.5 million IPO – I’ve expanded this news into a standalone item on the state of the life-science IPO market here.

OraMetrix raises $20M for robotic orthodontic systems – Richardson, Tex.-based OraMetrix, a maker of 3-D robotic systems for orthodontic use, raised $20 million in a new funding round, peHUB reports. The financing is either a third round (as peHUB puts it) or a sixth (as VentureWire reports based on an interview with the company’s CFO). Existing investors, including Rho Capital Partners, Versant Ventures, Brentwood Venture Capital and Star Ventures, provided the cash.

Founded in 1998, OraMetrix makes and sells what it calls the SureSmile system for orthodontic braces. After taking a 3-D scan of a patient’s mouth, an orthodontist can then use the system’s computer modeling to develop a treatment plan. A robotic system then precisely bends the “archwires” that push teeth around.

OraMetrix claims the system shortens the duration of treatment and reduces office visits. The company has sold the system since 2004 and told VentureWire that it has installed SureSmile for more than 200 doctors, but says it needs to roughly double that figure to reach profitability.

Microarray maker TeleChem goes public via reverse merger – TeleChem International, a Sunnyvale, Calif., maker of gene-chip microarrays that is also known as ArrayIt, went public via a reverse merger with Integrated Media Holdings. The companies don’t quite call it a reverse merger, but given that IMH shares have traded at around two cents since September, the company has a shareholder’s deficit of $1.5 million and noted in its latest quarterly filing that there is “substantial doubt” about its ability to remain a going concern, the dots aren’t all that hard to connect.

Technically, IMH acquired TeleChem’s existing shares in exchange for 35 million shares of the merged company, which will undergo a one for 30 reverse split. At yesterday’s IMH close of, yes, two cents, that values the deal at about $21 million.

BioVascular pulls in $11M for platelet-disease treatments – San Diego’s BioVascular, a specialty pharma focused on drugs for fighting blood clots related to heart surgery, raised $10.9 million in a third funding round. Investors included BB Biotech Ventures, Merck KGaA and Domain Associates.

The funds will allow BioVascular to complete early-stage trials of two drugs, saratin for the prevention of clotting in grafted vessels following heart-bypass operations, and BVI-007, a platelet-production inhibitor it acquired last year when it bought out the biotech Revitus.

Cequent Pharma adds $4.5M for for RNAi drugs – Cequent Pharmaceuticals, a Cambridge, Mass., developer of drugs based on the gene-silencing technique called RNA interference, added $4.5 million to its first funding round, VentureWire reports. The new cash, provided by existing investors Novartis Option Fund, Ampersand Ventures, Nexus Medical Partners and Pappas Ventures, brings Cequent’s total funding in the round to $13.5 million.

RNAi involves the use of short stretches of RNA that engage ancient cellular mechanisms for silencing the output of particular disease-related genes. RNA, however, doesn’t enter cells easily, so Cequent is working on a way to use genetically engineered, non-disease-causing bacteria that will enter human cells and produce the desired RNA molecules locally. We covered Cequent’s previous funding here.