Wireless Medicine Gets $45M Booster Shot, Arena’s Weight-Loss Trial Underwhelms Wall Street, Venter’s Synthetic Genomics About to Ramp Up, & Other San Diego BizTech News
Bruce V. Bigelow4/6/09Leave a CommentFollow @bvbigelow
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in coming months. The startup packages two small video cameras with a wireless gateway, enabling secure, real-time Internet video viewing of everything from family birthday parties to remote business operations.
When Qualcomm (NYSE: [[ticker: QCOM]]) acquired Advanced Micro Devices’s (NYSE: AMD) graphics chip division in January, the San Diego wireless giant also acquired Finland’s Bitboys. The company has an amazing and turbulent past, as explained by Juha-Pekka Tikka, our Stanford innovation journalism fellow.
Sweden’s Innovationsbro (Innovation Bridge), a business networking organization, said it is establishing its first overseas office in San Diego to help Swedish technology companies enter international markets.
Juha-Pekka profiled Tyson McDowell, the 27-year-old CEO and co-founder of Benchmark Revenue Management, a San Diego software developer that helps hospitals handle billing and collection issues more efficiently. McDowell helped invent the PandaCam at the San Diego Zoo and flies an ex-Soviet fighter jet in his spare time.
San Diego’s Veoh, which is seeking online video users in a market dominated by YouTube and Hulu, replaced its chief executive and cut 25 employees, or 36 percent of its work force. Founder and former CEO Dmitry Shapiro replaced Steve Mitgang, who joined the venture-backed company from Yahoo about two years ago.
A couple of venture deals showed San Diego’s life sciences sector still has a pulse. Ambrx, which is developing breakthrough therapeutics with genetically-engineered drugs, raised $10 million, and Traversa Therapeutics, which is developing RNAi-based treatments for cancer, raised $5 million from Newton Centre, MA-based Morningside Venture Investments, San Diego’s Mesa Verde Venture Partners, and existing investors.
Cambridge, MA-based Genzyme, which operates two facilities in San Diego, reported that its gene therapy for people with peripheral artery disease failed in a clinical trial to help them regain some mobility. The treatment was supposed to help stimulate the growth of new blood vessels around clogged arteries in the legs.
Bruce V. Bigelow is the editor of Xconomy San Diego. You can e-mail him at bbigelow@xconomy.com or call (619) 669-8788
