Cambridge, MA-based OmniGuide, a provider of laser-based medical devices, has raised $3.5 million in an equity round of funding from nine investors, an SEC filing shows. The company, whose chairman is Analog Devices (NYSE: ADI) co-founder Ray Stata, raised $249,999 in September 2009 and $1.8 million that May.

Comments | Reprints | Share:          

What do you get when you cross an MIT startup, a longtime public tech company, and three of the Boston area’s top VC firms? That sounds like a joke, but I’d argue that you get the makings of an interesting trend. The trend is that hardware—the actual machinery that powers our computers, phones, and other devices—is making a bit of a comeback around town.

OK, so maybe this region never really lost its hardware prowess. But it sure seems that software, cloud computing, and “virtual” this and that have ruled the tech innovation discussion as of late. For example, Sim Simeonov, the investor and founder of FastIgnite, argued in an Xconomy post in January that, in everything from mobile devices to corporate servers, software would dominate as an economic driver over hardware, which will become more commoditized over the next decade.

But maybe there’s more to the story. Although it’s anecdotal, I’m starting to see a micro trend toward hardware across different levels of the business community—usually a sign that something real is going on. Here are three examples of what I’m seeing:

—A high-powered Boston-area VC syndicate announced this week it has invested in a $48 million financing round for Smooth-Stone, a chip startup in Austin, TX. Battery Ventures, Flybridge Capital Partners, and Highland Capital Partners are all betting on Smooth-Stone, which is looking to modify low-power semiconductor chips from the mobile-phone industry and put them into servers and data centers run by giants like Google, Microsoft, and Amazon. ARM, the UK-based smartphone chip designer, is another investor in the company.

The idea is to develop chips that use less power and emit less heat than traditional Intel server chips—thereby saving big, IT-heavy companies tons of money. If the startup succeeds, look for the competition with the world’s biggest chip maker to reach biblical proportions. Smooth-Stone, after all, refers to the rock that David used to slay Goliath. (I guess its slingshot would be ARM.)

—Lyric Semiconductor is an MIT startup bent on overturning the world of computer chips—at least for certain applications that involve probabilities. I’ve been hearing things about this company, but haven’t had a chance to dive into the details yet. The New York Times ran a story yesterday about Lyric and its new probability chip (my term, not the company’s).

Lyric’s website says it is redesigning its circuits, chip architecture, and programming language to “natively process probabilities” (presumably this is not something like the hype over “fuzzy logic” all over again). The idea is that such chips could potentially use much fewer transistors than conventional chips to do the heavy lifting of computing—especially for tasks like finding patterns in data. Lyric has raised some $20 million in government funding and venture capital. Its lead investor and chairman is Ray Stata, the founder of Analog Devices.

—Speaking of which, Analog Devices (NYSE: ADI), the Norwood, MA-based semiconductor and electronics company, posted some notable financial results this week. Analog, which has been a New England institution since 1965, said its profits from the most recent quarter, ending July 31, had tripled (to $199.5 million) as compared to the same period last year ($65.5 million). The performance was partly driven by increased revenues (up 46 percent to $720 million). Analog has had its ups and downs over the past decade, but this year has looked strong so far.

Maybe there’s just more demand for electronics in general these days—which would bode well for all of these hardware-focused companies.

Comments (1) | Reprints | Share:          

It’s no secret that consumers are looking for technology to help better handle e-mail communications. We’ve written about strategies for keeping the volume of your inbox down, and applications for reminding you to follow up on an e-mail conversation.

Alexander Moore’s Cambridge-based startup Baydin was originally focused on helping consumers better bring in relevant files to e-mail conversations, but he switched focus this winter, and is instead developing an application that allows users to compose an e-mail immediately but actually send it minutes, hours, or days later.

He launched his plug-in, called Boomerang, for Gmail late last Wednesday, with 250 invite codes. People found their way around the invite codes, and as of this morning, more than 25,000 people had downloaded the Boomerang for Gmail plug-in.

“The Gmail version just kind of exploded on us,” he says. “I think we touched much more of a nerve than we thought we were going to touch.”

As I mentioned, we’ve covered other technologies that are looking to remind you when to follow up on e-mails, or to help manage the flow of communication in your inbox. But the Boomerang plug-in seems to be one of the more intuitive ones I’ve seen. It doesn’t require you to go to a separate screen or website, or add an additional e-mail address. The Boomerang button just appears with the text ”Send Later” alongside the standard buttons in the composing an e-mail screen: send, save as draft, and discard.

You simply type the e-mail as you would, and click the Boomerang button. The dropdown menu allows you to select what future date, time, or increment of time you want the e-mail to send, and off it goes at your selected hour. It appears to the recipient as if you had physically hit the send button yourself at that future date.

Users can also utilize Boomerang on e-mails in their inboxes that they want to be reminded of at a later date. Just hit the Boomerang button on your selected message and choose from the dropdown menu when you want it to reappear at the top of your inbox. It sends the message back to you, with a star and the “Boomerang” label alongside it, and organizes all the messages you have handled this way in a Boomerang folder on Gmail.

“What’s going to happen is that people are going to realize that this enables them to do a different email workflow than what they’re used to,” says Moore, who’s working on his startup out of Polaris Venture Partners’ Dogpatch Labs in Cambridge.

Moore, who formerly developed switches for HDTV inputs at Analog Devices, was accepted into the startup mentoring program TechStars Boston last summer with a different focus. He was originally developing software that … Next Page »

Comments | Reprints | Share:          

Little did I know when I canceled an interview in September with MaxLinear CEO Kishore Seendripu that my journalistic window of opportunity would irrevocably close—and it probably won’t crack open again until some Grizzly Adams wins the jackpot in this year’s Nenana River Ice Classic.

Needless to say, MaxLinear deflected my subsequent attempts to reschedule the interview. MaxLinear’s quiet period deep freeze officially began two months later, when the Carlsbad, CA-based wireless chip design company filed its registration statement for an initial public offering. Now, if the IPO experts at Renaissance Capital are right, we can look forward to MaxLinear’s public offering sometime next week.

MaxLinear, founded by eight semiconductor industry veterans in 2003, has planned a relatively modest offering of more than 5.4 million shares (6.25 million if the underwriters exercise their full over-allotments). At a price of $12 a share, the company expects to raise $42.7 million (or nearly $50 million if all over-allotments are sold) by selling its part of the offering—almost 77 percent. The remaining 1.27 million shares are being sold by inside stockholders. MaxLinear plans to use the capital for general corporate purposes and acquisitions. The company’s shares will trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol MXL.

The timing seems ideal for a newcomer that specializes in computer chips that enable people to watch TV on a handheld wireless device. MaxLinear designs high-performance radio frequency (RF) systems-on-a-chip for receiving and processing digital TV broadcasts, digital videos, and broadband data downloads. Television nowadays is increasingly being incorporated in consumer electronic devices that previously did not include TV functionality, such as mobile handsets, PCs, and netbooks. As the company says in its registration document, “Recent technological advances in the display and broadcast TV markets are driving dramatic changes in the way consumers access and experience multimedia content.”

Of MaxLinear’s 177 employees, more than 77 percent are in R&D, designing RF and mixed-signal chips used … Next Page »

Comments | Reprints | Share:          

Despite the Presidents Day holiday, it’s been a big life sciences week for us.

—A new venture fund is being assembled by the founders of Cambridge, MA-based Sirtris Pharmaceuticals, a developer of treatments for aging-related diseases that went to GlaxoSmithKline for more than $700 million in 2008. Christoph Westphal, Michelle Dipp, and Rich Aldrich have pulled in $50.7 million from 24 undisclosed investors for their Longwood Founders Fund, according to an SEC filing.

—Helicos Biosciences (NASDAQ:HLCS) president Steve Lombardi has resigned, the Cambridge-based company disclosed in a regulatory filing last Friday. Lombardi officially concluded his full-time work and his role on the Helicos board on February 11, but will continue to earn his salary through August. Helicos, which makes genetic analysis instruments, didn’t disclose the reasons for Lombardi’s departure, but said it wasn’t due to a conflict with company policies.

—Luke caught up with the CEO of Rib-X Pharmaceuticals, a New Haven, CT-based antibiotic developer that’s raised $35 million in the last year. The company is hoping to get help from a Big Pharma company on a trial for its top drug candidate, which should lead to an application with the FDA to market the drug in 2012, if all goes well.

—Ryan looked at the bumpy ride experienced by Lantheus Medical Imaging, a North Billerica company once owned by Bristol-Myers Squibb. The firm’s big focus is on new products like its contrast agent for diagnosing cardiovascular diseases, but it struggles to gain the name recognition that its previous owner had.

—Cambridge-based social networking site PatientsLikeMe announced that it acquired ReliefInsite, an online pain management firm that helps patients track their pain levels and share them with doctors. The move comes just after PatientsLikeMe’s West Coast rival, Keas, brokered a deal with Pfizer (NYSE:PFE) to expand the use of its health-monitoring software.

—The Carl Icahn story continues. The big biotech investor known for gobbling up shares at companies such as Biogen Idec (NASDAQ:BIIB) and Amilyn Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:AMLN) has taken a bigger stake in Cambridge’s Genzyme (NASDAQ:GENZ), increasing his holdings from 1.5 million shares in fourth quarter of 2009 to 4.6 million shares earlier this month.

—Eleven Biotherapeutics roared out of stealth mode with a $35 million Series A round, Luke reported. The Cambridge company, which looks to engineer protein treatments for blood clot disorders and autoimmune diseases, also has assembled a team of big names from the biotech and venture worlds.

—Providence, RI-based NABsys nabbed $7 million in Series B funding led by Stata Venture Partners, run by Analog Devices co-founder and chairman Ray Stata.  NABsys, whose DNA sequencing technology hinges on semiconductor innovations, will use the funding from Stata to develop a platform intended to streamline the reading of DNA chains.

—Ryan wrote about healthcare software provider Sentillion’s entry into the big leagues with its acquisition by Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT). Few aspects of Andover, MA-based Sentillion’s business have changed since the access management software company became part of Microsoft’s health and life sciences unit, says CEO Robert Seliger, who will stay on as a general manager.

Comments | Reprints | Share:          

Ray Stata, the co-founder and chairman of Analog Devices, is arguably the biggest name in semiconductors that Massachusetts has to offer. So it’s noteworthy that Stata’s Stata Venture Partners is leading a $7 million Series B round of venture capital for Providence, RI-based NABsys, which is developing a DNA sequencing technology that relies heavily on innovations from the semiconductor industry.

NABsys, which announced the second-round financing today, says that Stata has also joined the firm’s board of directors. The firm says that it plans to use the round to fund development of its DNA sequencing platform, which the firm hopes will significantly expedite the process of reading DNA chains for everyday healthcare uses. NABsys CEO Barrett Bready gave us some insight into his bold vision for the firm last year, when the firm announced the closing of a $4 million Series A round of funding led by Point Judith Capital.

Stata adds oodles of credibility to the Brown University spinout’s experimental “electronic, solid-state DNA sequencing method,” in which silicon chips are used for rapid electronic detection of DNA sequences. Stata, the founder of Needham, MA-based Stata Venture Partners, is a pioneer in the semiconductor industry through his more than four decades of leadership at Analog Devices (NYSE:ADI), a Norwood, MA-based maker of high-performance semiconductors and other technology that reported more than $2 billion in revenue last year.

“NABsys represents the merger of two industries which, until now, have been quite disparate: semiconductors and genomics,” Stata said, in a prepared statement. “I’m looking forward to working with the company’s leadership team and helping them commercialize what we believe will be a significant breakthrough in making DNA sequencing clinically relevant and widely available.”

Fast and inexpensive DNA sequencing is believed to be a key to improving how genomic information is used to treat patients, diagnose diseases, and aid in life sciences research. Last month we reported how the costs of sequencing an entire genome, in certain circumstances, have already been dramatically reduced from millions of dollars to thousands of dollars within the last several years.

Comments (2) | Reprints | Share:          

Luminus Devices in Billerica, MA, may hold the record among Massachusetts technology companies for the shortest time between conception and launch. But the journey since then has been anything but straightforward.

One summer day in 2002, recent MIT PhD graduate Alexei Erchak and his former advisor, physicist John Joannopolous, were meeting to talk about whether Erchak should accept a lucrative job offer he’d just received, or start his own company—perhaps around the work he’d done in Joannopolous’s lab on ways to use photonic crystals to extract more light from LEDs. “John said, ‘Let’s give Ray Stata a call and see what he thinks,’” says Erchak.

Stata, of course, is the famous MIT alum who co-founded Analog Devices, and a frequent venture investor in local startups. He took the call, and said he had half an hour to talk—but only if Erchak and Joannopolous could come to his office right away.

“We flew out of John’s office, sped down the Mass Pike at 90 miles per hour—at this point I still had jeans and a T-shirt on—and we ended up at that meeting,” Erchak recalls. “We walked into a big board room totally unprepared, except for some slides I’d grabbed out of my PhD presentation. We said ‘We have no idea how to deploy this technology, but if you give us some seed funding, we’ll go figure it out.’ Ray, being a very entrepreneurial-minded person, said that was all he needed to hear.”

By the end of the day, Erchak was at an attorney’s office signing incorporation papers—and had a promise of $200,000 from Stata.

Seven years and at least three iterations of its business plan later, Luminus Devices makes the world’s brightest LEDs, using highly guarded methods based on Erchak’s research and other technologies to manufacture its own “PhlatLight” chipsets right here in Massachusetts. (The “Phlat” stands for photonic lattice.)

The company is poised to help reinvent not only portable devices such as pocket projectors, but the entire lighting industry. Retail, residential, outdoor, stadiums and TV studios, you name it—almost anywhere there’s a conventional incandescent or fluorescent bulb, Luminus’s technology offers a brighter, longer-lasting, less toxic, and in many cases more energy-efficient alternative.

“This company is a home run just waiting to happen,” says Keith Ward, a lighting industry veteran who joined Luminus five months ago as president and CEO, replacing founding CEO Udi Meirav. “LEDs are seven times more efficient than incandescent and starting to surpass halogen and metal halide, so if you can fit them into the existing infrastructure, it’s a win.”

Unfortunately, that’s a big if. The one shadow in Luminus’s outlook is that the company is entirely dependent on device makers, lighting-fixture manufacturers, and other partners to get its PhlatLight LEDs out into the world. It’s a fact that has sent the startup back to the drawing board twice—the first time shortly after Stata’s seed investment, when it became clear that the company’s initial target market, cell-phone manufacturers, weren’t ready to incorporate a new light source into their displays, and the second time just in the last two years, as an unexpectedly rapid drop in the price of big-screen LCD televisions killed off demand for rear-projection DLP televisions, an application for which Luminus’s large, bright LEDs were thought to be ideal.

But Luminus’s investors have signaled their confidence by continuing to pour cash into the company—most recently, in a $72 million Series E round led by … Next Page »

Comments | Reprints | Share:          

If you’re fortunate enough to be gainfully employed, you may have joined the droves of other Boston-area innovators who have headed for the Cape, the White Mountains, or another summertime retreat in recent months. Or perhaps you’ve been busy looking for your next career challenge. Either way, with Labor Day fast approaching, we thought it’d be useful to tie together labor trends and some of the larger layoffs that have occurred at technology and life sciences firms in New England since Memorial Day.

First, it’s been encouraging to see that our Boston Tech Layoff Tracker has not been as busy this summer as it was over the previous spring, winter, and fall seasons. Perhaps this is another sign that the worst of this economic recession is behind us. Since June 1, we’ve recorded that Massachusetts-based life sciences and tech firms announced a total of 718 jobs would be cut in their organizations. Now, that doesn’t include the small startups we follow that have been cutting jobs without officially announcing the layoffs: For example, we reported this month that Chelmsford, MA-based online music startup OurStage downsized its ranks from 38 to 17 workers last fall after some investment dollars failed to come through. But this summer’s layoff total to date marks a significant falloff from the 971 layoffs we recorded at Massachusetts life sciences and tech firms in the spring months of April and May.

It’s been a tough year for innovation companies here and everywhere, but layoffs seem to have peaked in the first quarter of this year. State figures show that the impact of layoffs among tech and life sciences workers in the Bay State is consistent with the impact on workers in the rest of the economy. (Of course, the state says that jobs in industries such as construction and financial services have been hit the hardest by layoffs in the commonwealth.) According to the most recent employment figures from the state’s Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development, the number of professional, scientific, and technical jobs in the commonwealth fell from about 258,200 in June 2008 to 249,700 this June, a 3.29 percent decline. (Admittedly, these figures are just an indication and the job category the state uses does not reflect all the jobs in tech and life sciences firms.) The state labor agency reported that year-over-year employment levels for all non-farming jobs in June were down about 3.2 percent, meaning that the layoff trend has far from spared local innovation-based firms.

Here is our recap of the summer’s largest tech and life sciences layoffs in the Boston area:

—Just last week, Sonus Networks (NASDAQ: SONS), a Westford, MA, company helping cable, wireless, and telephone companies with the transition to Internet-based communications, announced a fourth round of layoffs as part of its ongoing “rightsizing” effort, this time affecting 93 people. Sonus let go 50 workers in December, 40 in January, and 60 in March, for a total of 243.

—Analog Devices (NYSE:ADI), the Norwood, MA-based maker of micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) chips for multiple industries, told the Boston Globe earlier this month that the company plans to cut … Next Page »

Comments (2) | Reprints | Share:          

Marlborough, MA-based signaling company Axis Semiconductor has completed half of a proposed $2,050,000 equity financing round, according to an SEC filing. No details on the investors were provided, par for the course for the company, which has been in stealth mode since its incorporation in 2007. Three members of Axis’ board of directors, including the chairman, previously worked at Analog Devices, the Norwood, MA-headquartered signal communications firm. Axis’ website claims its technology “improves the efficiency of signal and data processing by orders of magnitude over existing solutions.”

Comments | Reprints | Share:          

OmniGuide, a Cambridge, MA-based provider of laser-based medical scalpels, has raised $1.8 million in an equity financing, according to an SEC filing. The filing does not specify who invested in the round. Xconomy last covered the company in May 2008 when the firm disclosed a $25 million fifth-round financing. Its investors include company chairman Ray Stata, the well-known founder and chairman of Norwood, MA-based integrated circuit maker Analog Devices (NYSE:ADI).

Comments | Reprints | Share:          

The sum of a company’s patent awards is not by a longshot a perfect barometer for an organization’s ability to innovate, but it can be one important measure of its investment in itself and its intellectual property—and its future competitiveness. In that regard, IT infrastructure company EMC (NYSE:EMC) seems like it’s doing all right. The Hopkinton, MA-based firm led the state in the number of patents won last year, no small feat when you’re doing business near an intellectual property machine like MIT, which came in at a distant second, according to figures Xconomy obtained from Wilmington, DE-based IFI Patent Intelligence. (Check out the list of the top 25 patent winners below for specific figures.)

Last week, IFI noted in its national survey of U.S. patent grants for 2008 that foreign companies edged out their American counterparts in patenting—with 50 percent of total awards, compared with 49 percent for U.S. firms. Asian tech companies such as Samsung Electronics of South Korea and Japan-based Toshiba led the way. But Armonk, NY-based IT giant IBM topped IFI’s list with a record-high 4,186 patent grants.

Again, it’s tough to draw conclusions about a company’s—or country’s—capacity to innovate based on patent grants. For instance, a breakthrough drug for cancer may only require a few patents to protect its intellectual property, while a relatively mundane piece of software may entail dozens. (Perhaps that also sort of explains why IT companies often best their counterparts in life sciences in total patent grants.)

After IFI released its national patent totals last week, we at Xconomy sought out figures for Massachusetts. (Be forewarned that the patents tallied in the list below represent only those patents assigned to each entity’s operations in Massachusetts, and patents awarded to offices outside the state aren’t included.)

Here’s the top 25 list:

1. EMC (IT) — 192
2. MIT (academic research) — 138
3. Analog Devices (semiconductors) — 122
4. Raytheon (defense) — 122
5. Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories (electronics) — 86
6. Acushnet (sporting goods) — 78
7. Massachusetts General Hospital (medical research) — 53 … Next Page »

Comments (1) | Reprints | Share:          

The new year got off to a good start last week for Boston-area tech firms. Even with the abbreviated work week there were plenty of deals for us to discuss.

—Needham, MA’s HiWired announced it has raised $9 million in a Series B financing led by North Hill Ventures and joined by Sigma Partners and Kodiak Venture Partners. The company plans to use the cash to expand its base of consumer and small-business customers for its IT support and services offerings.

—Analog Devices (NYSE: ADI) closed the $184 million sale of its CPU voltage regulation and PC thermal monitoring business to Phoenix’s ON Semiconductor.

—Boston-based Gelesis, a stealthy startup focusing on obesity, raised $16 million in its first institutional financing. OrbiMed Advisors of New York led the deal; Australia’s Queensland BioCapital Funds and others joined.

—Cambridge, MA-based Tempo Pharmaceuticals, a startup developing nanoparticle-based treatments for cancer and autoimmune and inflammatory diseases, raised $8.1 million in Series B financing from the likes of Bessemer Venture Partners, Polaris Venture Partners, Venrock, and Lux Capital.

—Boston-Power of Westborough, MA, closed a third round of venture funding totaling $45 million. The deal, led by Oak Investment Partners and joined by Venrock, Granite Global Ventures, and Gabriel Venture Partners, will help Boston-Power scale up production of its more-efficient laptop batteries.

—Follica, a Boston-based startup developing potential treatments for baldness and other hair-follicle problems, raised $5.5 million in a Series A round led by Interwest Partners and joined by founding investor PureTech Ventures. For more on the startup’s technology (and more hair jokes that you can shake a comb at) see Bob’s profile of the firm.

—Spark Capital of Boston invested $5 million in 5min, an Israeli company developing an online portal for how-to videos. 5min will use some of the cash to relocate to New York.

—California data management firm NetApp (NASDAQ: NTAP) announced it would acquire Boston’s Onaro; the deal is reportedly worth $120 million.

—Newton, MA-based peer-to-peer (P2P) video distribution startup PeerApp reportedly raised $3 million in new venture funding from Pilot House Ventures, Evergreen, and Cedar Fund.

Comments | Reprints | Share:          

Analog Devices (NYSE: ADI) announced today that it has completed the $184 million sale, announced last November, of its CPU voltage regulation and PC thermal monitoring business to ON Semiconductor of Phoenix. The divestiture is part of Norwood, MA-based Analog’s efforts to transition its power management portfolio to high-performance products that better complement its signal-processing technology, according to a press release.

Comments | Reprints | Share:          

Cilk Arts, a Lexington, MA, startup that is creating a commercial version of MIT professor Charles Leiserson’s Cilk parallel programming language, said yesterday that it had closed a Series A funding round led by Stata Venture Partners and a network of software industry executives. The amount raised was not disclosed. The company also said it had added Ray Stata, founder and chairman of Analog Devices, and Paul Levine, founder and former CEO of Atria Software, to its board of directors. We’ve spoken with CEO Duncan McCallum about the company’s plans to help independent software vendors rewrite their applications for the multicore machines now emerging onto the server and PC market, and will profile the company later this week.

Comments | Reprints | Share:          

Last week left us with lots to talk about, so let’s get right to it.

—In venture news, RFID infrastructure firm Tagsys of Cambridge, MA, closed a $16 million second tranche of a Series C round totaling $35 million. Investors included J.P. Morgan, DFJ Esprit, Endeavour, Elliott Associates, Saffron Hill Ventures, and Add Partners. Shelton, CT-based IT consulting firm CRI Technologies announced it had closed a $10 million Series A round; Commonwealth Capital Ventures and Sigma Partners led the deal. (CRI used some of the cash to acquire Computer Resolutions, a virtualization consulting firm.) Boston-area biotech startup OxyPlus raised $8 million from Index Ventures in a first round; the firm is developing treatments for cancer, heart failure, and diabetic retinopathy based on the regulation of the interaction between oxygen and hemoglobin. Cambridge-based HubSpot, which offers online marketing tools for people with better things to do, took in $5 million in a first venture round led by Cambridge neighbors General Catalyst. And Boston- and Palo Alto-based Globespan Capital Partners announced it has closed its fifth fund, worth $380 million. Unlike the firm’s previous funds, this one will be used to invest directly in Japanese technology companies, among others.

— It was a week of mixed news on the university endowment front. On Wednesday, MIT announced that its endowment grew by $1.6 billion, to a total of $9.98 billion, during the fiscal year that ended June 30—thanks in large part to a healthy 22.1 percent investment return for the year. The news didn’t get a lot of play, however, perhaps because people were still buzzing about Harvard’s announcement the day before that the investment manager who helped grow its endowment to $34.9 billion—Mohamed A. El-Erian—will be stepping down after less than two years. Harvard’s less-than-enlightening announcement about El-Erian’s resignation is here.

—Waltham-based Repligen (NASDAQ: RGEN) and MIT accepted a $65 million settlement from ImClone Systems (NASDAQ: IMCL), against which they had filed suit in 2004 for patent infringement related to the sale of the cancer drug Erbitux. Repligen said that it planned to put its $40 million share of the settlement toward expanding its bioprocessing business and its central-nervous-system product pipeline. The market seemed to think Repligen got the short end of the stick: the firm closed the week at $4.29, down from Monday’s open of $4.90. (ImClone closed at $39.02, up from $36.98.)

—In M&A news, Norwood, MA’s Analog Devices (NYSE: ADI) agreed to sell its Othello radio and SoftFone baseband chipset operations to Taiwan’s MediaTek for some $350 million in cash; the Norwood firm said it will continue to address the wireless handset market by focusing on enhancing audio, video, connectivity, and power efficiency. Andover, MA-based NaviSite (NASDAQ: NAVI) announced it will acquire Virginia applications management services provider netASPx for $40.5 million in cash and stock. And acquisition-addicted diagnostics maker Inverness Medical Innovations (Amex: IMA) of Waltham completed its purchase of Hayward, CA’s Cholestech—the eighth company Inverness has acquired this year.

—Harvard Medical School and Merck announced that they have forged a cooperative research agreement to focus on oncology and central nervous system disorders. The announcement indicated that six Harvard labs will get funding through the deal, though it didn’t disclose more specific financial terms, and pointed out that the medical school is within walking distance of Merck’s research labs.

—In nearby Allston, MA, Genzyme (NASDAQ: GENZ) is gearing up for a ground-breaking ceremony slated for Tuesday morning to celebrate the $150-million expansion of its existing manufacturing plant. The plant produces several of Genzyme’s drugs, including Myozyme, a treatment for the inherited muscle disorder Pompe disease; Genzyme is currently awaiting FDA approval to sell Myozyme produced at the plant to U.S. customers.

—Finally, the week brought more bad news for the One Laptop Per Child project. The price tag on its “$100 laptop” jumped again, from $176 to $188. Meanwhile, production—which was supposed to begin this month—was delayed until November.

Comments | Reprints | Share: