Life sciences briefing: Monday, Jan. 7, 2008

Life sciences briefing: Monday, Jan. 7, 2008

TODAY’S HEADLINES:

Surgical-device maker Aragon Surgical receives $25M (release)
Tacere Therapeutics strikes RNAi deal with Pfizer for up to $145M (release)
Benvenue Medical raises $15M for spine-repair devices (release)
Genome-association co. Genizon BioSciences draws C$31M (release)
Contract research organization Inclinix pulls in $10M (release)
EPocrates, healthcare IT developer, gets strategic investment from Goldman Sachs (release)
ZyGem closes first funding round (release)
Onset Ventures names John Ryan partner (release)
Retired Scripps immunologist Richard Ulevitch joins 5AM Ventures (release)
SV Life Sciences promotes Darren Black to partner… Continue Reading

Life sciences briefing: Thursday, Sept. 13, 2007

Life sciences briefing: Thursday, Sept. 13, 2007

Featured companies: Aldagen, LDR, Lyten Endoscopy, MachLabs, Permatox, TeleMedicine Clinic, ThromboVision

Spinal-implant maker LDR raises $25M — Austin, Texas-based LDR, a maker of spinal implants, raised $25 million in a third funding round. Investors included Telegraph Hill Partners, Austin Ventures, Rothschild Private Equity and PTV Sciences.

LDR sells spinal-fusion devices, artificial disks and other spine-related devices in more than 30 countries, and plans to use the funds for further expansion.

Aldagen adds $9M for adult stem-cell work — Aldagen,… Continue Reading

Life sciences briefing: Thursday, Aug. 23, 2007

Life sciences briefing: Thursday, Aug. 23, 2007

(UPDATED at 6:30am PT on Friday: See below.)

Featured companies: DNA2.0, Globus Medical, Inotek Pharmaceuticals, Operon Biotechnologies, PleuraFlow

Globus Medical raises $110M for spinal implants — Globus Medical, an Audubon, Pa., developer of spinal implants, raised $110 million in a fifth financing round. Investors included Clarus Ventures, AIG SunAmerica and other large, institutional private-equity funds.

Some have called this the largest venture-capital funding of the year — by a grand total of $1.65. That’s one dollar and sixty-five cents. No… Continue Reading

Life sciences briefing: Friday, Aug. 17, 2007

Life sciences briefing: Friday, Aug. 17, 2007

Featured companies: Concentric Medical, Vertebration, Vision RT, Kemeta

Clotbuster Concentric Medical files for $69M IPO — Mountain View, Calif.-based Concentric Medical, which makes and markets devices for removing dangerous blood clots from the brains of stroke patients, filed to raise up to $69 million in an initial offering. The company’s devices consist of catheters that are threaded into the body’s circulatory system via the femoral artery in the groin and passed into the brain to the site… Continue Reading

Spinal fusion: Will the Medtronic/Kyphon deal quell ferment in the orthopedic-implant market?

Spinal fusion: Will the Medtronic/Kyphon deal quell ferment in the orthopedic-implant market?

I didn’t write about Medtronics’ $3.9 billion acquisition of Kyphon when it was announced almost two weeks ago, largely because it seemed to be a pretty straightforward merger of two big public companies with relatively few implications for the venture medical-device business.

The good folks at the In Vivo Blog beg to differ, and weighed in earlier this week with a sharp analysis of the deal. To summarize, Kyphon was seen as an upstart in the… Continue Reading

Implant maker Amedica files for $75M IPO

Salt Lake City-based Amedica filed to raise up to $74.8 million in an IPO, just a week after it raised $13.2 million in a fourth funding round. The maker of ceramic implants for spinal and joint repair said it doesn’t expect its first products to reach the market until next year.

Amedica’s S-1 filing, by the way, is the first I can recall seeing that explicitly lists “healthcare reform” as one of its major risk factors:

We… Continue Reading

Amedica raises $13.2M for spine and joint implants

Amedica, a Salt Lake City maker of ceramic implants for spines and joints, raised $13.2 million in a fourth round of funding. Creation Capital placed the financing. The company had previously raised more than $30 million.

The company is developing a line of ceramic knee, hip and spinal-disk replacements, along with related ceramic spine implants. Its release is here.