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TODAY’S HEADLINES:

• Stent maker IDev Tech raises $25M (VentureWire)
• Xytis gets $15M for brain-injury drugs (VentureWire)
• Diagnostic maker Iris Biotech plans to go public, launch breast-cancer test (Edgar)
• RiverVest Venture Partners raises $75M life-science fund (release)
• Concentric Medical names Maria Sainz CEO (release)

[Note: I'm a little sad to announce that this will be my last life-science briefing at VentureBeat, although with luck, it won't be the end of my time here. Starting Monday, I'll be blogging regularly on the drug industry and healthcare over at BNET Industries, a new CNET venture, so drop by if you can. (Preparing for that move is the main reason non-briefing posts have been scarce recently.) I still hope to post here occasionally as well, since covering below-the-radar startups has been a blast, and I'm not ready to give it up quite yet.

It's been a great year -- my first VentureBeat post was on April 3, 2007 -- and I want to thank Matt for the opportunity to join you here, and all our regular readers and commenters for your time and your insights. As journalists, we're only as good as our sources and readers, and you guys have helped in countless ways to make me look much smarter than I really am. --D.P.H.]

Stent maker IDev Tech raises $25M – IDev Technologies, a Houston medical-device startup, raised $25 million in a third funding round, VentureWire reports. The company is developing a new type of stent for use in propping open the liver’s bile ducts .

The company’s existing investors, a group that includes Bay City Capital, Heron Capital, PTB Sciences and RiverVest Venture Partners, provided the funding. IDev had previously raised $24 million, according to VW.

Xytis gets $15M for brain-injury drugs – Irvine, Calif.-based Xytis, a biotech focused on disorders of the central nervous system, raised $15 million in an extension of its second funding round, VentureWire reports. Its backers included Atlas Venture, CDC Innovation, Sanderling Ventures and Ventech.

The company says it was founded in 2005 from the merger of Xytis Pharmaceuticals and Remergent. (Sounds more to me like Xytis swallowed Remergent, but they’re free to describe it however they’d like.) Its lead drug candidate, XY2405, blocks a cellular protein called the Bradykinin B2 receptor, a signaling molecule thought to promote inflammation.

Xytis is testing the drug as a potential treatment for traumatic brain injury; the molecule is currently in mid-stage, phase II trials. The company is also testing an antidepressant in early-stage trials.

Xytis raised half the money last August, then received the second $7.5 million in April, the company told VentureWire. It has previously raised $24.5 million in its current incarnation, and its “predecessor companies” pulled in $6.5 million.

Diagnostic maker Iris Biotech plans to go public, launch breast-cancer test – Santa Clara, Calif.-based Iris Biotechnologies, a developer of molecular diagnostic tests, is preparing to go public, VentureWire reports. The company plans a small offering on the OTC Bulletin Board — if I’m reading its latest SEC filing correctly, its existing shareholders will raise about $1.1 million, with no proceeds headed to the company  — and hopes to launch a breast-cancer test later this year.

Iris plans to use chips to measure gene activity in breast cancer, with the hope of predicting the odds that a surgically removed tumor will recur and, eventually, helping patients and doctors customize cancer treatment from an early stage. The company claims that it will be competitive with Genomic Health and Agendia, two companies with similar tests for predicting breast-cancer recurrence.

There’s something a little odd about Iris’ disclosures in the SEC forms, though. Iris doesn’t describe its technology, the genes it will test or how it settled on them in any detail, and spends almost as much time talking about its database of patient information and related computer technology as it does about its tests. While it may consider some or all of that information a trade secret — and disclosure requirements may well be looser for such a small offering — it’s still kind of unusual for a startup to ask outside investors to put up their money essentially on faith.

Devax, a Lake Forest, Calif., maker of artery-opening stents, withdrew its filing for an IPO that the company estimated would raise $85 million. The company filed for its IPO in May, but until its withdrawal hadn’t filed any revisions to that preliminary document since.

The withdrawal is the latest bad news for stent makers. Big makers of the devices have been battered by a raft of sometimes contradictory studies that have nevertheless raised fears that stents might contribute to the formation of dangerous blood clots, and that they may be no more effective than drug therapy in the case of many blockages. Now the FDA is about to impose a more stringent testing regime for approval of new stents, which will likely push up development costs.

That’s particularly bad news for venture-backed stent makers, which had seemed to ride out the storm over stent safety fairly well over the past year. In February, for instance, XTent raised $76 million in an IPO, while in July CardioMind pulled in $33 million in a third venture round (our coverage here and here).

Other stent-related innovations, such as “bioresorbable” devices that dissolve weeks or months after they’ve propped open an artery and allowed it to heal, have also continued to pull in venture bucks. See, for instance, recent fundings for Reva Medical ($42 million — our coverage) and Arterial Remodeling Technologies ($7.8 million — our coverage). TriReme Medical, which — like Devax — is developing stents designed specifically for blockages in arterial junctions, also just raised $16 million (see here).

Public investors may be feeling less generous, though, if the Devax experience is anything to go by. That said, Devax also seems oddly secretive for a company that had actually hoped to go public. Its Web site is a bare-bones affair that offers nothing but contact information, and its IPO-withdrawal letter doesn’t even include the obligatory fig leaf that blames “market conditions” for its failure to get out the gate. At least the company’s first SEC filing is informative. (We didn’t manage to cover it at the time, but we’ll have an eye on them going forward.)

Featured companies: Algorithme Pharma, Bacchus Vascular, Botaneco, Cubist Pharmaceuticals, Ikonisys, Healthcare Management Systems, Illumigen Biosciences, Kilmer Capital Partners, Medical Specialties Distributors, Metastatix, Microphage, Orthosoft, Thomas McNerney & Partners, TranS1, TriReme Medical, Wren Medical, Zimmer

UPDATE: Expanded TriReme Medical, Ikonisys and TranS1 items.

UPDATE REDUX: Added MicroPhage item.

Stent-maker TriReme Medical sails off with $15.6M — Pleasanton, Calif.-based TriReme Medical, a device maker developing a new type of artery-opening stent for blood-vessel junctions, raised $15.6 million in a third funding round. (The company doesn’t appear to have a Web site.) Investors included Three Arch Partners and Adams Street Partners.

TriReme claims that its new stent is easier to use and can be placed more accurately than similar stents now on the market. The product is still undergoing clinical studies.

Ikonisys draws $30M for cancer and prenatal diagnostics — New Haven, Conn.-based Ikonisys, which now makes and sells a cell-based diagnostic for cancer and prenatal testing, raised $30 million in a fifth funding round. Investors included Goldman, Sachs, Trevi Health Ventures, Palisade Capital, Everfin, Lakeview Capital Management, New Science Ventures, Promark Holdings, Saint Simeon - e Investimentos, and WHI Group.

Ikonisys makes an automated microscope-based test that analyzes cells from blood and other bodily fluids. The system can chunk through up to 175 microscope slides in one go, providing an initial diagnosis for each one based on a computer analysis of stained cell samples. The company has received FDA approval to market the test for detection of bladder cancer and to scan for prenatal chromosomal defects.

TranS1 IPO exceeds estimated range, raises $95M for spinal-fusion devices — The Wilmington, N.C., maker of minimally invasive devices for spinal fusion priced its IPO shares at $15 apiece, above its expected range of $12 to $14, raising as much as $95 million on the sale of up to 6.3 million shares. The offering values the company at $281.6 million. Our previous coverage of the firm is here and here.

In early trading Wednesday, TranS1 shares were up 60 percent to $24. That’s more confirmation — as if we needed it — that life-science investors seem excited about everything except biotech.

Infection-diagnostic co. MicroPhage raises $1.6M — Antibiotic-resistant staphylococcus infections are on the rise, boosting the need for ways to detect the bugs at an early stage so as to prevent their spread and treat patients most effectively. MicroPhage, a Longmont, Colo., biotech at work on a diagnostic test of this sort, raised $1.6 million in a second tranch of its first funding round. Private investors provided the funding.

MicroPhage isn’t alone in this market, of course. We wrote earlier about OpGen and AdvanDX — see our coverage here and here — which hope to speed detection of these “superbugs” (technically known as MRSA, for methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus) using new genome-based tests. MicroPhage, however, takes an ingenious and decidedly low-tech approach: Its tests are designed to detect MRSA by infecting the staph germs with bacteria-specific viruses called bacteriophage. These viruses multiply so rapidly that they should be detectable by simple antibody tests within one to four hours, a solution the company bills as simple and inexpensive compared to its high-tech counterparts.

OTHER HEADLINES OF NOTE:

• Botaneco takes in $2.4M for dermatology emulsions, split from SemBioSys Genetics (release)
• Marval Bio raises $1M for less toxic contrast dye for CT scans (VentureWire, sub req’d)
• 7 Health Ventures raises $70M for Israeli medical-device startups (VentureWire)
• Zimmer completes acquisition of OrthoSoft for $51.4M (Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette)
• Cubist buys “exclusive option” to acquire anti-infective developer Illumigen (release)
• Medical Specialties Distributors acquires infusion-product distributor Wren Medical (PE Hub)
• Kilmer takes majority stake in contract researcher Algorithme Pharma (PE Hub)
• Healthcare IT firm Healthcare Management raises funds, recapitalizes (release)
• Clotbuster-device co. Bacchus Vascular names Scott Cramer CEO (release)
• Chemokine specialist Metastatix names Carol Gallagher as CEO (release)
• Thomas, McNerney & Partners names Eric Aguiar partner, Jason Brown as associate (release)

(UPDATED at 3:10pm PT: See below.)

Featured companies: Agendia, EndoGastric Solutions, FlowCo, Gentris, MedManage Systems, ParagonDx, Presidio Pharmaceuticals, Xoova

Presidio Pharma raises $26M for viral treatments — San Francisco’s Presidio Pharmaceuticals, a biotech developing new antiviral drugs, raised $26 million in a second funding round. Investors included Panorama Capital, Baker Brothers Investments, Bay City Capital, Ventures West Capital, Nexus Medical Partners, Sagamore Bioventures, George Rathmann Fund and Peninsula Overview Partners.

Presidio’s lead drug candidates take aim at HIV, hepatitis C and other viral infections. None of its drugs have entered human tests yet.

EndoGastric Solutions pulls in $30M for “transoral” surgeries — Redmond, Wash.-based EndoGastric Solutions, a medical-device maker developing products for incision-free gastrointestinal surgery, raised $30 million in a fourth funding round. Investors included DeNovo Ventures, Chicago Growth Partners, MPM Capital, Advanced Technology Ventures, Foundation Medical Partners, and Oakwood Medical Investors.

In March, EndoGastric received FDA clearance for a device it calls the StomaphyX, a disposable surgical instrument that can be passed into the stomach or the intestines via a patient’s mouth. Although EndoGastric isn’t too clear on exactly what the StomaphyX is for — the company says it’s for use in “endoluminal transoral tissue approximation and ligation” — the device appears to be a sort of staple gun that can fasten together parts of the stomach or intestines. EndoGastric says the device can be used to treat gastroesophageal reflux disease, and its Web site appears to suggest that it can also perform bariatric surgery from inside the stomach as a treatment for obesity.

Agendia gets $34M for gene-based diagnostics — Amsterdam-based Agendia, a developer of gene-based diagnostic tests for cancer, raised $34 million (€25 million) in a fourth funding round. Investors included ING, Van Herk Biotech, Gilde Healthcare Partners and Global Life Science Ventures.

Agendia, founded in 2003, sells diagnostic tests that assess the “activity level” of various genes in tumor tissue, a technique that allows it to predict whether, for instance, a woman has a high or a low risk of seeing her breast cancer return. That test, sold under the brand name MammaPrint, was approved in the U.S. in February. Agendia has developed similar tests for identifying unknown cancers and for assessing the prognosis of colon cancer.

MedManage Systems, a drug-sampling service provider, receives $5M — MedManage Systems, a Bothell, Wash., company that helps drug manufacturers push free samples into the hands of doctors in order to “build brands,” raised $5 million of a planned $10 million financing, PE Hub reports, citing a regulatory filing. Investors include Lilly Ventures, Prism VentureWorks, QuestMark Partners and Versant Ventures.

At heart, MedManage’s business seems to be a consulting service that uses a mix of technology, data analysis and old-fashioned legwork make it easy for physicians to hand out free drug samples, which the MedManage site calls “a proven marketing strategy” for “influenc[ing] physician prescribing behavior.”

The company’s Web site is larded up with all manner of marketing buzzwords, but it’s actually fascinating to read through. That’s because most folks in the pharmaceutical industry would never admit that drug samples are part of a sophisticated marketing program aimed at getting doctors used to particular brands and patients to request them by name. (Large drug companies would prefer you to believe that they give away free drugs out of the kindness of their heart and sympathy for the people who can’t afford their products.) MedManage, however, makes no bones about using samples to push particular drugs. So for a peek behind the curtain, check out MedManage’s description of what it calls its “OmniSample Solution” — it’s very illuminating.

Xoova raises $2.5M for medical social-networking — Santa Monica, Calif.-based Xoova, a social network for doctors and patients, has raised $2.5 million in a first funding round last year, VentureWire reports (subscription required). Spark Capital Partners provided the funding.

Xoova allows physicians to post profiles of themselves online, much the way Facebook and similar services do for the general population. Xoova CEO Tommy McGloin estimates that 20,000 doctors have already done so, a number he hopes will grow to 100,000 by the time he begins raising an expected $5 million round next year.

Consumers can search the doctor profiles and, in some cases, can make appointments online if the doctor has signed up for a free Xoova service. McGloin said the company intends to roll out new features in coming months, although the one cited by VentureWire — allowing patients to both book and cancel appointments online — sounds awfully mundane.

Cardiac-device maker FlowCo raises $250K — FlowCo, an Indianapolis medical-device developer, raised $250,000 in a seed financing. BioCrossroads provided the funding. FlowCo, which doesn’t have a Web site, is working on a new catheter for deploying arterial stents, the wire-mesh devices that prop open clogged arteries, more accurately.

ParagonDx acquires Gentris unit for early diagnostics — ParagonDx, apparently a newly formed Morrisville, N.C., biotech firm focused on molecular diagnostics, said it acquired the Gentris Diagnostics unit of Gentris, a pharmacogenomics firm also based in Morrisville. Financial terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.

It’s not immediately clear exactly what this transaction means — I’m assuming ParagonDx was essentially spun out of Gentris, but the release isn’t terribly clear on that point. There are also some other oddities, such as the fact that as of this moment, the ParagonDx URL redirects to the Gentris site. It’s entirely possible that they’re just working out merger-day glitches, but it’s also possible something else weird is going on.

UPDATE (3:10pm PT): Added items on MedManage Systems, Xoova, FlowCo and ParagonDx/Gentris.

For Micell Technologies, a Raleigh, N.C., materials company that recently reinvented itself as a developer of drug-releasing stents, perhaps the third time will be the charm.

Founded in 1995, Micell specializes in the use of supercritical fluids, which are highly compressed gases that exhibit both gas and liquid properties. The company initially marketed liquefied carbon-dioxide systems to dry cleaners as an ecofriendly alternative to a solvent known as perchloroethylene. Its machines, however, were expensive, and Micell sold the garment-cleaning business in 2002.

The company next explored ways to use its carbon-dioxide technology to clean and process semiconductor wafers, a business that appears to have gone nowhere fast. According to VentureWire (subscription required), the company also looked into industrial-fabric applications, also apparently with little success.

Three years ago, Micell hit upon the notion of using carbon dioxide to apply drug coatings to medical devices and turned its attention to stents, the expandable mesh-like tubes that doctors use to prop open clogged arteries. The company’s strategy is to use its supercritical-fluid technology — developed jointly with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory — to provide superior drug coatings, which are intended to slowly emanate from the stent mesh in order to suppress scar-tissue growth that can re-block an artery. Current drug-coated stents appear effective at preventing scar tissue in the short run, but have also raised worries that they might increase the risk of dangerous blood clots over time.

Micell claims that its technology may make possible entirely new drug coatings on stents and other devices that may prevent such problems. In April, the company presented data on stents coated with heparin, a blood thinner, and sirolimus, an immune suppressant.

Today, Micell raised $7 million in what, despite its long history, it is calling a first funding round, according to VentureWire. Invemed Catalyst Fund and the GE Pension Plan provided the cash. Prior to a recapitalization a few years ago, the company had raised $60 million, VentureWire reported. Micell figures that the latest funding will last it a year, enough to produce some laboratory-animal data on the effectiveness of its coated stents.

CardioMind, a secretive Sunnyvale, Calif., developer of stents designed to prop open blocked arteries, raised $33 million in a third round of funding, VentureWire reports (subscription required). From the VentureWire story:

CardioMind, with 30 employees, is developing small-diameter drug-eluting stents and delivery devices for cardiovascular and neurological indications and has been largely operating in stealth mode for the past five years.

SV Life Sciences and De Novo Ventures led the round, joined by InterWest Partners, Latterell Venture Partners, Morgenthaler Ventures and Onset Ventures.

CardioMind had previously raised $20 million in two financing rounds, according to VentureWire.

Despite recent concerns over the safety of drug-eluting stents, which are coated with a substance designed to prevent growth of scar tissue that can reblock arteries, new stent companies have continued to get a warm welcome from investors. Menlo Park, Calif.-based Xtent, for instance, raised $76 million in a February IPO. In May, Devax, a Lake Forest, Calif., stent developer, filed to raise up to $85 million in an IPO.