TODAY’S HEADLINES:
ViOptix pulls in $12M for tissue-oxygen sensors (release)
Tethys Bioscience raises funding, preps diabetes-prediction test (release)
Synergy Life Sciences closes $143M medical-device fund (release)
Venture-backed Go Fig. files for bankruptcy protection (VentureWire, sub req’d)
Whole-genome sequencer Knome strikes
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TODAY’S HEADLINES:
Specialty pharma Innocoll raises $30M for collagen technologies (release)
Immusol changes name to ItherX Pharma, names Jeffery McKelvy CEO (release)
Austin’s Santé Ventures raises $130M healthcare VC fund (release)
Belgium’s AlgoNomics, immunogenicity screener, names Philippe Stas as CEO
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TODAY’S HEADLINES:
Essex Woodlands raising $1.25B for life-scences fund (VentureWire, sub req’d)
SCP VitaLife raises $122M for life sciences (VW)
Pantec Bio draws CHF 6.3M for laser-drug delivery (release)
Essex Woodlands raising $1.25B for life-scences fund — Essex Woodlands Health …
MPM Capital, a VC firm headquartered in Boston and South San Francisco, Calif., wants to put Indian life-science firms on notice that it’s comin’ a-huntin’. The VC firm told reporters for VentureWire, Reuters and others that it plans to actively …
Are venture capitalists really shunning biotechnology, as I wrote a few days ago? A deeper look at the data suggests the answer is still yes, although not exactly for the reasons I first suspected.
First off, the most striking data …
(UPDATED: See below.)
At first glance, life-sciences investments seemed largely to hold steady in the third quarter, despite failing to match a 7.6 percent rise in overall funding, according to data from VentureOne and Ernst & Young. A closer …
Featured companies: 20/20 GeneSystems, Bellicum Pharmaceuticals, Cumbre Pharmaceuticals, Dara BioSciences, Enterprise Partners Venture Capital, Fermentas, International, Iasis Medical, New Leaf Venture Partners, Point Therapeutics, Power Medical Interventions, Rules-Based Medicine, Spinal Restoration, Still River Systems, Targanta Therapeutics
(UPDATED: See below.)…
Featured companies: AirInSpace, Anacor Pharmaceuticals, Apollo Endosurgery, Ascension Health Partners, BG Medicine, CeraPedics, GlaxoSmithKline, Simplex Diabetic Supply, Zars Pharma
UPDATED: Last entry added at 2am PT on 10/8/07.
Anacor Pharma pulls in $22M from Glaxo, with hundreds of millions more …
Featured companies: Accenx, Chlorogen, Third Rock Ventures
Ex-Millennium execs found new life-sciences venture fund, raise $378M — Several former executives of Millennium Pharmaceuticals have founded a new Boston-based venture firm called Third Rock Ventures and raised $378 million for early-stage …
Featured companies: Atritech, Avalon Partners, Ensemble Discovery, Hyperion Therapeutics, LifeBond, ReShape Medical, SafeStitch, Trophos, UltraShape
Hyperion Therapeutics raises $40M against GI and kidney disease — Hyperion Therapeutics, a South San Francisco, Calif., specialty pharmaceutical company, raised $40 million in a …
Over at VentureBeat proper, Matt highlights a theory advanced by venture capitalist Keith Benjamin, who argues that the credit crunch now threatening the private-equity boom may have the unexpected effect of boosting returns in technology investments. (Keith puts this all …
(UPDATED: See below.)
The biotech colossus Amgen, stung by safety and regulatory issues that hit hard at sales of its core anemia drugs, announced today that it will cut its headcount between 12 percent and 14 percent, ratchet back …
Venture-capital financing may be at a six-year high, but the picture in life sciences is a mixed one. After a blowout first quarter, second-quarter fundings in biotechnology actually dropped 19 percent, to $1.1 billion, compared to the same period last …
Saratoga Ventures, a Los Gatos, Calif., venture-capital firm specializing in early-stage medical-device investments, has raised $3 million as part of an expected $25 million sixth fund, PE Wire reports.
That may not sound like a lot, but investing in early-stage …
BioVeda China, an international VC fund focused on life science in China, raised $10 million from Lilly Asian Ventures, a spinoff of the Eli Lilly venture arm Lilly Ventures. The funds will be invested in local Chinese life-science companies.
From …
(UPDATED with minor editing changes.)
Venrock Associates, the venerable Rockefeller-founded VC firm in Menlo Park, Calif., plans to expand its investments in publicly traded biotechs, VentureWire reports (subscription required).
The venture firm, which allocates roughly one-third of its funds …
Vivo Ventures plans its first in Asian life-science investments now that it has closed a new fund, VentureWire is reporting (subscription required). The Palo Alto, Calif., outfit, formerly known as BioAsia Investments due to its former association with Asian investors, …
Every trend has its counterexamples, and the rush of venture funding into biotechnology is no exception.
VentureWire reports today (subscription required) on the case of Sequella, a small Rockville, Md., biotech working on new therapies for drug-resistant tuberculosis (whose bacterium …
Biotechnology and medical-device venture investment soared in the first quarter as funding for information technology and other sectors declined, according to data compiled by Ernst & Young and Dow Jones VentureOne.
Overall venture funding for U.S. companies rose 8% in …
(Note: This item has been copied over to the Life Sciences page from its original location on the VentureBeat main page. To view it in its original context, with comments, click here.)
Venture investors’ interest in early-stage biotech companies may …
