San Diego-based Jitterbug, the simple-to-use wireless phone and services provider, says today it has acquired MobiWatch, a startup in Waltham, MA, developing mobile personal emergency response services. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Jitterbug says the deal will provide its users with personal safety services that are intuitive, reliable and deliverable through its Samsung-made clamshell cell phone, which features a simple interface and keypad that especially appeals to seniors. As we reported in March, the business operates as a subsidiary of GreatCall, co-founded by wireless pioneer Arlene Harris as an antidote to the excessive complexity of many 3G smart phones. GreatCall operates as a mobile virtual network operator, or MVNA, an independent company that provides mobile phone service but does not have its own licensed operating frequency.

GreatCall officials would not comment beyond the press release. As MassHighTech reported last year, MobiWatch was developing a fob-like Bluetooth-enabled device that a user could attach to a keychain. In an emergency, the user would push the dime-sized button on the fob, which would launch the Bluetooth connection to the user’s cell phone to call an emergency response center. An operator at the center would determine the nature of the emergency, use GPS to locate the caller’s location, and contact the appropriate authorities.

Jitterbug says it plans to further develop the MobiWatch technology before bringing it to market.

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Frazer, PA-based Cephalon (NASDAQ: CEPH) has agreed to pay $30 million for an option to acquire BioAssets Development Corporation, a Wellesley, MA-based company investigating spinal uses for existing and experimental drugs, according to a press release. Under the terms of the agreement, BioAssets will be eligible for an additional payment if Cephalon exercises the option, as well as for payments tied to regulatory and sales milestones.

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This week we had the usual mix of news on partnerships, clinical trials, and the like, as well as some fascinating in-depth discussions with key players in the life sciences arena.

—Antibiotic developer Rib-X Pharmaceuticals announced that the oral form its experimental antibiotic radezolid passed a mid-stage clinical trial as a treatment for a common form of pneumonia. The New Haven, CT, firm is looking to partner with a pharmaceutical company to help move the drug toward FDA approval.

—Genzyme (NASDAQ:GENZ) of Cambridge, MA, won approval from European regulators to market plerixafor (Mozobil) for patients with lymphoma and multiple myeloma who need stem cell transplants. The drug helps boost the number of stem cells that can be collected from the blood for such transplant procedures.

—Altus Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:ALTU) of Waltham, MA, said it will need to raise more capital before the end of next month in order to continue its operations. In March, the firm reduced its staff and abandoned development of a cystic fibrosis treatment in order to focus on ALTU-238, a treatment for patients with growth hormone deficiency.

—Cambridge-based Alnylam Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:ALNY) joined forces with Vancouver’s Tekmira Pharmaceuticals (TSX:TKM) to come up with new drug-delivery particles to get RNA-interference drugs where they need to go in the body. Alnylam will fund the research and gets exclusive rights to the resultant discoveries.

—Anti-viral drug maker Idenix Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:IDIX) priced a secondary public offering of 7.25 million shares at $3.14 each. The Cambridge-based firm expected to raise $21.2 million from the offer.

—Irish drug company Elan filed suit against its Cambridge-based partner, Biogen Idec (NASDAQ:BIIB), over Biogen’s objections to a deal with affiliates of health Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) that Elan announced last month. That deal focuses on …Next Page »

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There’s not one but two venture-fund closings to report this week. More below on those, and the rest of the week’s deals news from New England’s life science and tech firms.

—Hopkinton, MA-based EMC (NYSE: EMC) won a protracted bidding war with rival NetApp over software maker Data Domain. After EMC increased its offer for Santa Clara, CA-based Data Domain (NASDAQ: DDUP) to $33.50 per share, Sunnyvale, CA-based NetApp (NASDAQ: NTAP) announced it would bow out of the competition for control of Data Domain, a maker of tools for data deduplication. Greg got a great exclusive (as far as we can tell) interview with Kai Li, Data Domain’s co-founder and chief scientist, about the company’s technology and strategy, the future of data storage, and the implications of the EMC deal.

—Excel Venture Management of Boston closed a $125 million fund, which it intends to invest in life sciences companies poised to affect a broad range of industries, including information technology, alternative energy, agriculture, textiles, and chemistry. Luke had an interesting chat with one of the firm’s managing directors, Juan Enriquez, about its plans and some of the startups already in its portfolio.

—Fellow life sciences venture firm 5AM Ventures surpassed the $150 million target for its third fund. 5AM, which has offices in Waltham, MA, and Menlo Park, CA, pulled in $159.2 million from 34 investors.

—Bedford, MA-based Rapid Micro Biosystems raised $18.6 million in a Series A round from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, TVM Capital, Quaker BioVentures, and VIMAC Milestone Medica Fund. The startup makes technology,

—E-mail archiving firm Sonian of Dedham, MA, raised $4.1 million out of a planned $6.6 million private stock offering, according to documents filed with the SEC.

—The numbers from June, provided by our new partner, ChubbyBrain, showed that healthcare startups were attracting the most investment in Massachusetts, accounting for 9 of the 17 deals done during the month. Not a single deal in June involved cleantech or energy.

—Quincy, MA-based Modiv Media, a provider of in-store digital media tools for grocery stores, raised $1.2 million out of a planned $2.52 million financing round.

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The flow of deals from New England’s tech and life sciences companies was sluggish this week but not completely frozen. Acquisition news predominated.

—Cambridge, MA-based Charles Stark Draper Laboratory won a $146 million contract from the U.S. Navy to work on guidance systems for the Trident II nuclear missile.

—Burlington, MA-based speech technology giant Nuance Communications (NASDAQ: NUAN) gave Calgary, Alberta-based Zi Corporation (NASDAQ: ZICA) until February 13 to respond to its latest takeover offer. The Canadian firm’s board has repeatedly rejected Nuance’s advances, which began last summer.

—Life sciences equipment maker Millipore (NYSE: MIL) of Billerica, MA, inked a deal to acquire Guava Technologies of Hayward, CA, for $22.6 million.

—Needham, MA-based IT technical support provider HiWired agreed to sell its assets for an undisclosed sum to Montreal-based Radialpoint, an IT security and services firm.

—Software maker mValent was picked up for another undisclosed sum by Redwood Shores, CA-based software giant Oracle (NASDAQ:ORCL), which plans to integrate the Waltham, MA-based firm into its Oracle Enterprise Manager business.

—Worcester, MA-based RXi Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:RXII) forged an agreement to sell up to $25 million new shares of its common stock to YA Global Investments over the next two years. The deal calls for the developer of RNAi-based drugs to sell the stock in $500,000 increments at the lowest weighted average price of its shares over five straight trading days, less a 5-percent discount.

—Cambridge, MA-based biotechs Dyax (NASDAQ:DYAX) and Biogen Idec (NASDAQ:BIIB) expanded an agreement focused on using Dyax’s “phage display” technology to discover antibody drugs for Biogen. The new deal involves 10 more product licenses for Biogen; Dyax gets a $5 million payment upfront, research funding, and up to $85 million in milestone fees, as well as royalties for each drug that Biogen commercializes under the arrangement.

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New England life sciences firms gave us a little breather on the fast-breaking news this past week, so we had some time to take a closer look at some of the most interesting new companies and projects in the field.

—Luke interviewed Tom Hughes, the CEO of Zafgen, and learned more about the startup’s plans for developing drugs that fight obesity by blocking the blood supply to fatty tissue. The next day, the Cambridge, MA-based firm, which is backed by Atlas Venture and Third Rock Ventures, announced it had inked a deal with a U.K. contract research firm called Argenta Discovery, which will aid in the development of one such drug.

—Cambridge, MA-based Genzyme (NASDAQ:GENZ) agreed to pay $24.5 million for diagnostic maker Exact Sciences’ assets related to prenatal and reproductive health. In response, San Diego-based Sequenom (NASDAQ:SQNM) dropped its bid to acquire Marlborough, MA-based Exact (NASDAQ:EXAS) in an all-stock deal valued at $41 million.

—Another diagnostics maker, TheraGenetics of Cambridge, MA, and London, agreed to be acquired by UK-based Avacta Group for an undisclosed amount of cash and stock. TheraGenetics is developing tests to help predict a patient’s response to drugs for a number of neurological and psychiatric conditions.

—Dicerna Pharmaceuticals CEO Jim Jenson told Luke about his Watertown, MA-based company’s plans to find a “second doorway” into the development of drugs based on the gene-silencing technique RNA interference. By using slightly longer RNA molecules, he said, the company plans to make drugs that are more potent, longer-acting, and more customizable.

—Luke profiled NeurAxon, a startup in Waltham, MA, that’s out to stop migraine pain before it starts. This year will be a critical one for determining the efficacy of NeurAxon’s lead drug candidate, a pill that combines a triptan, a standard migraine medication, with a molecule that blocks nNOS, and enzyme involved in pain sensation.

—Lexington, MA-based cancer-drug developer Synta Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: SNTA) finished enrolling 630 patients in a clinical trial of its lead product candidate for melanoma that has spread through the body, and said it plans to unveils results from the study in May.

—Life sciences equipment maker Millipore (NYSE: MIL) of Billerica, MA, announced an agreement to acquire Hayward, CA-based Guava Technologies, a maker of cell-sorting and other testing devices—for $22.6 million.

—Pharmaceutical giant Merck tapped renowned Harvard cancer researcher D. Gary Gilliland to head Merck Research Labs, the Boston outpost where Merck is consolidating its oncology research operations. Gilliland will replace Stephen Friend in the role.

—Molecular Insight Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:MIPI) announced a host of leadership changes, including dropping “interim” from CEO John Babich’s title. Babich has helmed the Cambridge, MA-based firm since September 2008, replacing former CEO David Barlow, who also resigned from the Molecular Insight’s board last month.

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This last week saw several sizeable takeover agreements (and a few smaller ones) inked. Here’s more on those and the rest of the recent deals news.

—Hopkinton, MA-based EMC’s second takeover offer for San Diego-based storage maker Iomega was evidently the charm—the firms agreed on a final price of approximately $213 million, or $3.85 per share.

—Boston- and London-based buyout firm Advent International completed raising its sixth fund, worth $10.4 billion.

—Japan’s largest drug firm, Takeda Pharmaceutical Company, made a surprise $8.8 billion takeover offer for Cambridge, MA-based Millennium Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: MLNM). Under the terms of the deal, Millennium will stay put in Massachusetts and so will its current CEO, Deborah Dunsire, who will run the firm as a standalone business unit of Takeda.

—Burlington, MA’s Nuance Communications (NASDAQ: NUAN) cut a $363 million deal to purchase Needham, MA-based eScription, which makes speech-to-text medical dictation software.

—PowerSteering Software raised $3.5 million in new financing in a round led by MMV Financial and joined by Hudson Ventures and Advent International. The Cambridge, MA, firm’s software-as-a-service products help companies comply with the Six Sigma standards for process improvement.

—Waltham, MA-based Repligen (NASDAQ: RGEN) settled a patent suit it had filed with the University of Michigan against Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE: BMY). Under the settlement agreement, Repligen will collect an initial $5 million payment and royalties on BMS’s arthritis drug, Orencia.

—Luggage-screening firm Reveal Imaging of Bedford, MA, raised $20.3 million in a financing led by BBH Capital Partners III and joined by existing investors, including Greylock Partners, General Catalyst Partners, and Flybridge Capital Partners.

—In-Q-Tel, the venture arm of the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies, made a strategic investment in QD Vision of Watertown, MA. The Massachusetts firm is using MIT-developed “quantum dot” technology to build next-generation LEDs.

—North Andover, MA’s TouchStone Software—which provides users with a database of drivers for PC peripherals—agreed to be acquired by Phoenix Technologies of Milpitas, CA, for about $18 million.

—Bankrupt medical-device firm Diomed (AMEX: DIO) of Andover, MA, plans to sell its U.S. operations and some of its U.K. assets to AngioDynamics of Queensbury, NY, for $11 million. The deal comes instead of an earlier plan to sell out to the German firm Biolitec.

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Looks like somebody misread the memo about Evacuation Day and decided yesterday was Acquisition Day here in the greater Boston area. (Although Axcelis Technologies made no such mistake.)

First, there was the whopping $800 million that Lexington, MA’s BladeLogic (NASDAQ: BLOG) announced it will make in a buy-out by Houston, TX-based BMC Software (NYSE: BMC). BladeLogic, a data-center-automation firm, is no stranger to big exits; its $67 million IPO was the eighth biggest debut for a Massachusetts firm last year. And if this year’s acquisitions wind up looking anything like last year’s, BladeLogic could handily take first place in that category. “Organizations around the world will spend more than $140 billion dollars this year running data centers,” BMC CEO Bob Beauchamp in an announcement describing the $28-per-share deal. “Automation is the only way IT can bring this spending under control and still meet the reliability and time-to-market requirements of their businesses.”

Another local software firm, Teragram of Cambridge, MA, was also acquired yesterday, by Cary, NC, business-intelligence giant SAS. Founded in 1997 by two scientists from Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories and now 40 people strong, Teragram makes a host of natural language processing tools for the likes of CNN, Forbes.com, NYTimes Digital, Sony, WashingtonPost.com, Wolters Kluwer, the World Bank, and Yahoo. SAS plans to integrate Teragram’s technology with its own text mining and business intelligence tools. The firms did not disclose terms of the deal, except to say that Teragram will operate as an SAS company.

Hopkinton, MA-based EMC (NYSE: EMC), meanwhile, got a second chance to add another acquisition of its own. San Diego-based Iomega (NYSE: IOM) announced yesterday that it’s now prepared to enter into discussions with EMC after the Massachusetts firm sweetened its offer for the California storage firm to about $205.5 million. Iomega last week rejected EMC’s initial $180 million offer as too low and not any better than a stock-purchase agreement that Iomega had made late last year with companies registered in China and the Cayman Islands. Iomega said in a press release that the new offer “would reasonably constitute a superior proposal,” though it cautioned that EMC’s acquisition proposal was not binding and subject to due diligence. For EMC’s part, says director of corporate public relations Dave Farmer, “we’re encouraged by Iomega’s decision to move ahead with EMC discussions, and look forward to next steps.”

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Cambridge, MA-based e-commerce firm Art Technology Group (NASDAQ: ARTG) will acquire Seattle’s CleverSet for some $10 million in cash, not counting closing adjustments. CleverSet’s technology for automated personalization recommendations can be used for retail, manufacturing, telecommunications, financial services, travel and hospitality, and other applications, according to the announcement.

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As part of a previously announced restructuring effort, Natick, MA-based Boston Scientific (NYSE: BSX) has agreed to sell two of its businesses to private equity firm Avista Capital Partners for $425 million in cash. With this deal, which is expected to close in the first quarter of next year, “We now have under agreement the divestitures of all five non-strategic businesses we had previously identified for sale,” said Boston Scientific president and CEO Jim Tobin in a statement.

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Waltham, MA-based Inverness Medical Innovations (AMEX: IMA) has agreed to pay $170 million in stock for BBI Holdings, a UK company that specializes in lateral-flow tests, such as those used for fertility monitoring or pregnancy tests. Inverness has been on buying spree, which appears likely to continue.

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Westford, MA’s Microwave Device Technology, a provider of largely custom microwave and semiconductor products and components, will sell all of its assets to Irvine, CA’s Microsemi Corporation for $7.8 million in cash, the companies announced today. The deal is expected to close before year’s end.

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Boston Scientific (NYSE: BSX) announced it has sold its cardiac surgery and vascular surgery businesses to the Getinge Group for $750 million in cash. The Natick, MA-based firm first said it would sell the divisions back in August.

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Zipcar, the Cambridge-based car sharing service, announced today that it will merge with Flexcar, a Seattle firm whose main owner is Revolution, a Washington, DC, investment company founded by ex-AOL Time Warner Chairman Steve Case. Zipcar is the world’s largest car sharing provider, with 120,000 members in more than 35 cities, according to the company’s press release. Flexcar is roughly half that size, bringing the services’ combined membership to around 180,000. There’s a good writeup in Red Herring, which quotes Jonathan Seelig, a managing director at Boston-based Globespan Capital Partners, one of Zipcar’s main investors, as saying: “This business is better at scale.”

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Inverness Medical Innovations (AMEX: IMA), a diagnostics maker in Waltham, MA, announced that it it will acquire Reno, NV’s Alere Medical, for $302 million. By my count that’s the ninth acquisition agreement Inverness has forged this year.

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Nuance Communications (NASDAQ: NUAN), a Burlington, MA, speech and imaging firm, announced it had reached an agreement to acquire Dallas, TX’s Vocada, which produces technology for the automated distribution of medical test results. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

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Lexington, MA-based Cubist Pharmaceuticals announced it will pay $4.7 million, plus another $1 million in research and operating costs, for an exclusive option to buy Seattle’s Illumigen Biosciences. Illumigen’s lead compound is a protein-based treatment for hepatitis C. If Cubist exercises its option it will pay $9 million upfront, plus development and regulatory milestone payments that could surpass $330 million.

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