San Diego-Area Business, Life Sciences, and Technology News Briefs
05/11/11
San Diego’s Halozyme Therapeutics (NASDAQ: HALO) says it will receive an upfront payment of $9 million and potential future milestone payments of $74 million under an exclusive worldwide licensing agreement with Exton, PA-based ViroPharma (NASDAQ: VPHM). Halozyme is licensing the use of its recombinant human hyaluronidase in the development of a subcutaneous formulation of human C1 esterase inhibitor. ViroPharma develops proprietary pharmaceuticals to treat influenza, viral Pneumonia, Hepatits C, and other viral diseases.
05/10/11
San Diego’s Huntington Capital Fund II has made a Series A preferred investment in Carlsbad, CA’s Crescent House Publishing, which operates Scentsa, the technology software and services platform focused on fragrances and perfumes, and the Scentsa Media Networks. Partner Tim Bubnack says Huntington is not disclosing the size of the deal, which is at the lower end of the firm’s $1 million-to-$6 million deal range. The company, which we profiled last year, plans to use the funding to deploy high-definition LCD digital media screens in Barnes & Noble College bookstores. The company plans to provide live, high-definition media streams designed specifically for college students.
Japan-based Takeda Pharmaceutical said it has made an equity investment in San Diego-based Fate Therapeutics, the developer of stem cell technology. The amount wasn’t disclosed, but the announcement comes a few weeks after Fate disclosed in regulatory filings that it has increased the size of its current equity financing to $36 million, and pulled in another $1 million in debt financing. Takeda Ventures joins a syndicate of investors behind Fate, which includes Arch Venture Partners, OVP Venture Partners, Venrock, Polaris Venture Partners, Astellas Venture Management, Genzyme Ventures, and a third unnamed corporate venture investment group.
05/09/11
Carlsbad, CA-based Verdezyne, which has been developing industrial biotechnology processes for making adipic acid and other sustainable chemicals and fuels, says today it has closed a new funding round. While the amount of funding was not disclosed, Verdezyne says two of the investors, BP Alternative Energy Ventures and DSM Venturing B.V., joined in the round with existing investors OVP Venture Partners and Monitor Ventures. Verdezyne CEO Bill Radany also told VentureWire the company has agreed to work with BP in its efforts to develop cellulosic ethanol, technology that BP acquired from Verenium.
San Diego’s ImThera Medical has raised about $1.8 million of a planned $2 million financing round that includes both equity and rights to acquire securities, according to a recent regulatory filing. ImThera, which has been developing an implantable neurostimulation device for treating obstructive sleep apnea, says the funds will be used for the next phase of trials in the European Union, and to advance the company’s request for an investigational device exemption with the FDA in the United States. ImThera said today that clinical trial results of a European pilot study will be presented May 16 at the American Thoracic Society’s International Conference in Denver, CO.
05/05/11
San Diego’s Mad Catz Interactive (AMEX: MCZ), which sells videogame enhancements and interactive accessories, says today it has repaid $14.5 million in convertible debt that the company incurred when it acquired the Saitek group of companies in 2007. The financing included about $12.2 million raised last month through a private stock placement arranged by Roth Capital Partners. Mad Catz CEO Darren Richardson says the repayment will eliminate roughly $1.1 million of annual interest expense and retire about 10.2 million common shares that had been included in the company’s calculations of fully diluted earnings per share.
San Diego’s Awarepoint, which uses a Zigbee-based wireless mesh sensor network for real-time tracking of patients, medical devices, and hospital equipment, has closed on $14 million in debt financing, according to a pair of recent regulatory filings (here and here). Awarepoint said last month it had acquired Charlotte, NC-based Patient Care Technology Systems, although no price was disclosed. The company also named a new CEO, Jay Deady, and raised $9 million about six months ago. Awarepoint has previously raised capital from Silicon Valley Bank, Avalon Ventures, Cardinal Partners, JAFCO Ventures, and Venrock.
05/04/11
Optimer Pharmaceuticals spokeswoman Christina Donaghy was killed in a car crash Sunday in Cardiff-by-the-Sea, CA, a suburban coastal community about 25 miles north of San Diego, according to a report today in The San Diego Union-Tribune. Donaghy, 43, was in the back seat of a 1974 Porche Targa when the driver lost control on Manchester Avenue and collided with a Chevy S-10 pickup. A man believed to be the driver was seriously injured and another man in the Porche also was killed. Two people in the pickup also were injured. Optimer is awaiting an FDA ruling on its new drug application for fidaxomicin, an antibiotic for treating C. difficile infections.
05/02/11
San Diego-based Biocept, a cancer diagnostics and advanced laboratory services company, recently announced that David Hale has joined its board of directors as executive chairman—a move that could pave the way for Hale to eventually step in as the company’s CEO. Forward Ventures partner Ivor Royston also has joined Biocept as a director. Royston was a co-founder of Hybritech, the fount of San Diego’s startup life sciences community. Hale served as Hybritech’s president, COO, and CEO. Biocept says it plans to launch its first product, a diagnostic test for breast cancer, later this year.
04/27/11
San Diego-based VMIX, which has revised its strategy to emphasize social media, today unveiled a free Vidcinity iPad 2 app that allows users to create and broadcast video linked to a specific location, and enables users to find other location-specific videos. VMIX, which announced last month that it was offering video rentals on Facebook, says it also has upgraded its Vidcinity iPhone app. Vidcinity creator and VMIX co-founder Ian Miller explains how it works in this video.
AppNeta, a provider of cloud-based network management technology, announced today that it has raised $6.2 million in new funding, led by Bain Capital Ventures, Egan-Managed Capital, JMI Equity (which is based in San Diego and Baltimore, MD), and Business Development Bank of Canada. The Wellesley Hills, MA-based company, whose technology and staff comes from Apparent Networks, is officially launching under its new name today. The startup raised $12 million in 2009, while named Apparent Networks.
04/26/11
Proteostasis Therapeutics, the Cambridge, MA-based company seeking to keep proteins in balance to fight neurodegenerative diseases, said today it has obtained two exclusive technology licenses from Harvard University. The licenses pertain to the ubiquitin-proteosome pathway, and include biological targets and small-molecule drug candidates. Proteostasis, founded by Healthcare Ventures in Boston with technology from The Scripps Research Institute in San Diego, isn’t disclosing financial terms of the deal. The new batch of intellectual property comes from the Harvard labs of Daniel Finley, Randall King, and Alfred Goldberg, the company said.
San Diego-based Illumina (NASDAQ: ILMN), the world’s biggest maker of high-speed gene sequencing machines, has made another equity investment in U.K-based Oxford Nanpore. Oxford said today it has raised $41 million (25 million pounds) from Lansdowne Partners, IP Group, Invesco Perpetual, Redmile Group, Illumina and other undisclosed investors. Illumina first invested in Oxford, and its new method for DNA sequencing, in January 2009, and made its second investment in February 2010.
04/20/11
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has granted orphan drug designation to AM152, the lead drug candidate under development at San Diego’s Amira Pharmaceuticals for treating idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a lung disease that makes it difficult to breathe. In a statement yesterday, the company says the designation provides a seven-year period of market exclusivity and potential tax credits and regulatory advantages to the developer of a new drug therapy for diseases that affect fewer than 200,000 people in the United States. Amira says it is completing early stage tests of a compound that seems to help block the activation of a cellular receptor implicated in tissue fibrosis and related disease processes.
San Diego-based Gen-Probe (NASDAQ: GPRO) says today the FDA has cleared its nucleic acid amplification test to detect the sexually transmitted infection Trichomonas vaginalis for use in the United States. Gen-Probe says its Aptima assay is the first such test to be approved specifically for Trichomonas vaginalis, which is the most common curable sexually transmitted disease in the United States (with about 7.4 million infections a year). In a statement from the company, Gen-Probe CEO Carl Hull says the assay will be a convenient tool for physicians and laboratories because it employs the same technology as Gen-Probe’s tests for Chlamydia and gonorrhea, can be used with the same patient samples, and runs on the company’s fully automated Tigris system.
DFJ Mercury, a Houston-based seed-stage venture firm, has promoted venture advisor Russ Lebovitz to venture partner in San Diego and Houston, according to a report in PE Hub. Lebovitz is the CEO of Marval Biosciences, a DFJ Mercury portfolio company with offices in both Houston and La Jolla, CA, and the founder and chairman of Imagnx, a DFJ Mercury portfolio company based in Houston. Both startups are developing advanced medical imaging technologies.
04/19/11
San Diego’ Awarepoint, which developed wireless tags and a computerized tracking system to help hospitals and healthcare providers keep track of ventilators and other equipment, has acquired Patient Care Technology Systems, a workflow software developer in Charlotte, N.C. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Awarepoint has installed its asset tracking technology in 93 hospitals; Patient Care Technology Systems provides its software for managing hospital work flow to 60 customers. Awarepoint says the deal announced today gives it the ability to manage patient discharge information, emergency room activity, and scheduling for diagnostic imaging, laboratory services, patient surgeries and other operations.
04/18/11
San Diego-based Regulus Therapeutics, the developer of mircoRNA therapies, said today it has named Neil Gibson as its new chief scientific officer. Gibson was most recently the chief scientific officer and oncology therapeutics head at Pfizer’s oncology research unit in La Jolla, CA. Gibson replaces Peter Linsley, who left last month to join Bothell, WA-based AVI Biopharma (NASDAQ: AVII).
04/14/11
San Diego-based Regulus Therapeutics, the developer of microRNA therapies, said today it has formed a research collaboration with UC San Diego. The partners will seek to develop microRNA therapies that work to block new blood vessel formation (anti-angiogenesis), as a way to treat various diesases, Regulus said in a statement. Financial terms of the deal aren’t being disclosed, although the work is being supported by a UC Discovery Grant, Regulus said.
