Recent posts and comments

• Mind, Body, & Cash: Lighter Living Raises $3M

  Pilates is famous for shaping up peoples’ buttocks, tummies, and thighs. But what can the popularity of this fitness phenomenon and the market for health products do for investment portfolios? Cambridge,... Read more »

• Metcalfe Reflects on $2.7B 3Com Buyout, MyPunchbowl Parent Adds New Punch, $30M More for Fate Therapeutics, & More Boston Deals News

  Dealmakers appear to be getting their business done before the week of Thanksgiving—because we’ve seen a decent stream of deal closings involving Boston-area life sciences and tech companies over the past... Read more »

• $5.3M for Corindus

  Natick, MA-based Corindus has corralled $5.3 million of a proposed $10 million round of equity financing, according to an SEC filing. The firm is developing a robotic system that helps... Read more »

• Ligon Discovery Seeded with $1M

  Ligon Discovery reported today on its website that it has raised $1 milllion in seed financing from incTANK Ventures. The Cambridge, MA-based startup says it uses a small molecule microarray system... Read more »

• New Partner at Braemar Energy Ventures

  Braemar Energy Ventures, a venture firm focused on investments in the cleantech sector, has named Jiong Ma a partner of the firm, according to a Mass High Tech report. She... Read more »

• Founder Collective: When Entrepreneurs Form Their Own Seed-Stage Venture Firm

  Managing a venture fund is hugely different from running a startup. Eric Paley told me that last year at this time his primary responsibility was at dental imaging firm Brontes Technologies,... Read more »

• $875K for Swipely

  Swipely, a Providence, RI-based startup that was quietly launched earlier this year, has raised $875,000 of a planned $1 million equity financing, according to an SEC document filed last week. Angus... Read more »

• FDA Shoots Down Genzyme’s Latest Bid for Pompe Drug Approval

  Even more bad news from Genzyme (NASDAQ:GENZ). Following the news on Friday about new contamination found in treatments made at the Cambridge, MA-based biotech firm’s Allston, MA, plant, the... Read more »

• Alkermes to Seek FDA Approval of Anti-Addiction Drug

  Cambridge,MA-based biotech Alkermes said this morning that its long-acting naltrexone injection (Vivitrol) was more effective in treating opioid drug dependence than placebo in a Phase III clinical trial. The 250-patient clinical... Read more »

• Inside iRobot: A Search for Medical Droids

  Robots have already found limited work in healthcare by assisting surgeons with operations and physical therapists with rehabilitating patients, among other jobs. So why can’t robots keep an eye on seniors... Read more »

• Zoll Medical Pumps Out iPhone App for CPR Training

  Here’s an iPhone application that could actually help people save lives. Zoll Medical, a maker of cardiac defibrillators and other products for the critical care market, says this morning that it... Read more »

• Xconomy Videos: Sirtris’ Westphal and Millennium’s Dunsire Talk Cures for Ills of Big Pharma

  There’s new a dynamic at work in Big Pharma’s acquisitions of biotech companies in Boston and elsewhere. Drug companies don’t only want to buy biotech firms to enhance their R&D pipelines,... Read more »

• Alnylam Eyes RNAi for Manufacturing Drugs

  Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, a Cambridge, MA-based developer of RNA-interference drugs, said today that it sees a new business opportunity in using its gene-silencing technology to increase the output of biomanufacturing processes. The... Read more »

• Dossia Off to Slow Start with Personal Electronic Health Records

  Dossia is nearly three years from launching to provide electronic personal health records for major U.S. employers. And though the vision to provide employees of self-insured companies with a secure and... Read more »

• Right Brains Wanted: Sanofi-Aventis Wants to Tap the Creative Genius of Boston-Area Biotechs

  Sanofi-Aventis (NYSE: SNY) hosted a large event at its R&D site in Cambridge, MA, yesterday to make its pitch for why Boston-area biotech companies should want to form partnerships with... Read more »

• Three New England Deal Stories: Startups Pursuing Emotional Sensors, Drugs for Pets, & Mobile Video Raise Some Bucks

  We spotted three New England startups today that have recently filed papers with the SEC to report new rounds of equity financing. Other than their common geographic ties to region, it’s... Read more »

• Former Pfizer R&D Chief Joins PureTech Ventures as Senior Partner

  PureTech Ventures says it has swelled its ranks with another Big Pharma veteran. John LaMattina, former president of global research and development at Pfizer, has joined the Boston-based venture firm as... Read more »

• Evergreen Solar to Move Solar Panel Production from Massachusetts to China

  [Updated and corrected---8:30 pm ET on 11/05/09]Marlboro, MA-based Evergreen Solar (NASDAQ:ESLR) said it will move its solar panel production from Massachusetts to China—dealing a blow to the... Read more »

• Build it Boldly, and Pharma Will Come—and More Wisdom from Boston’s Biotech and Pharma Elite at Xconomy Forum

  It was an inspiring afternoon yesterday at Xconomy’s latest event, “Pharma’s Bet on Boston Innovation,” in Cambridge, MA. Local industry pioneers such as Millennium CEO Deborah Dunsire and Sirtris CEO Christoph... Read more »

• Konarka Finding New Partners for Power Plastic, But Faces Major Market Hurdles

  Konarka Technologies, the Lowell, MA-based developer of flexible materials that convert light into electricity, is showing how everyday items like handbags and umbrellas can be turned into power generators. But the... Read more »