This week was full with news of progress from New England drug developers.

—Waltham, MA-based antibody drug maker ImmunoGen (NASDAQ: IMGN) sold 7 million shares of stock at $12 apiece. The company had $115.8 million in cash on hand at the end of March, a quarterly report showed.

—Biogen Idec (NASDAQ: BIIB) of Weston, MA, said it received a positive opinion from the committee of the European Medicines Agency, which could help pave the way sales in Europe of fampridine (Fampyra) as a new treatment for multiple sclerosis. The drug is expected to be cleared in about two months, Biogen said.

—My colleague Luke took a look at Cambridge, MA-based Bluebird Bio, a developer of gene therapies that is getting a lot of attention for its two lead programs. One is a drug focused on beta-thalassemia, a genetic disorder in which patients don’t produce enough hemoglobin; the other is a treatment for the brain disorder childhood cerebral adrenoleukodystrophy.

—Cambridge-based Vertex Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: VRTX) nabbed FDA approval to market its drug telaprevir (Incivek) in the U.S. as a treatment for hepatitis C. The protease inhibitor can be used as a first-line treatment or for patients who haven’t responded well enough to other treatments. Earlier this month, the FDA approved a competing treatment from Merck  for the liver-damaging disease, which affects 3 million people in the U.S.

—Radius Health of Cambridge took in $91 million in new financing to help advance pivotal Stage 3 clinical trials of its osteoporosis treatment, and merged with an unlisted shell company (“MAC”), to take on the status of an SEC-reporting company and apply to be listed on a national stock exchange. The deal included $66 million in equity funding for Radius, which is developing a bone-building drug, called BA058, modeled after human parathyroid hormone-related protein.

—Casenet, a Bedford, MA-based healthcare software maker, added $3.3 million in equity funding and increased the size of its current financing round to a targeted $15.8 million.

—Cambridge-based drug developer Proteostasis inked a strategic alliance with Ireland-based Elan Pharmaceuticals to develop treatments for neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson’s, Huntington’s, and multiple sclerosis. Elan gave $20 million initially and could put another $30 million into Proteostasis over the next five years. in return for a 24 percent stake in Proteostais, a seat on its board of directors and scientific advisory board, and the first chance to exclusively license new drug compounds from the collaboration.

—Xconomy New York editor Arlene Weintraub talked to  Cambridge-based Alnylam Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: ALNY) CEO John Maraganore, who said the company’s drug for treating liver cancer could make a big splash at this year’s American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) conference on June 4. The company has more safety data on the drug than it did last year, with one of the patients in the trial having been on the drug for a year.

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New England biotechs made news this week with approvals from FDA advisory panels, licensing deals, collaboration agreements, and lawsuits.

—An FDA advisory panel unanimously recommended the FDA approve telaprevir, the thrice-daily pill for hepatitis C from Cambridge, MA-based Vertex Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: VRTX). The FDA, which usually takes the recommendations of these panels, is scheduled to make its final decision on the drug on May 23.The NASDAQ halted trading of Vertex’s common stock on Thursday while the advisory committed reviewed the application. The day before, an FDA panel voted unanimously to approve Merck’s (NYSE: MRK) rival hepatitis C pill, boceprevir.

—Proteostasis Therapeutics, a Cambridge-based developer of technology to fight neurodegenerative diseases by keeping proteins in balance, said it obtained two exclusive licenses from Harvard, pertaining to the ubiquitin-proteosome pathway. It did not disclose financial terms.

—Cambridge-based Dyax (NASDAQ: DYAX)  said it will collaborate with South San Francisco-based FivePrime to discover new antibody drugs. Dyax will get technology license fees and research support and is eligible for milestone payments and royalties if FivePrime successfully develops drugs using Dyax’s phage display technology.

—My colleague Ryan wrote about KEW Group, the new Concord, MA-based cancer care startup that’s been in the formative stages for about a year and is working on raising venture money. KEW is led by Boston biotech veterans and Harvard scientists, and is working to open up a network of oncology clinics that make IT and evidence-based medicine, like genetic testing, more accessible to patients get treated at community clinics.

—Genzyme, the Cambridge-based biotech now owned by Sanofi-Aventis (NYSE: SNY), amended its patent infringement lawsuit against Anika Therapeutics (NASDAQ: ANIK) surrounding Anika’s osteoarthritis treatment, Monovis. Genzyme also filed a new complaint in U.S. District Court in Boston that includes a newly issued patent.

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ImmunoGen, in the eyes of Wall Street, is largely defined by one thing—its relationship with industry giant Genentech. That’s because Genentech uses ImmunoGen’s technology to help amp up the antibody trastuzumab (Herceptin) into a more potent breast cancer drug called T-DM1, which has shown significant promise in clinical trials.

Yet ImmunoGen chief executive Daniel Junius says there’s a lot more to the story. Today, his firm is hosting an analyst day in New York to emphasize some of the drugs that are wholly-owned by ImmunoGen—unlike T-DM1, in which Genentech will reap the lion’s share of the rewards. Junius gave me a preview yesterday of two so-called antibody-drug conjugates—which link targeted antibodies with toxins to make them more potent—that are 100-percent owned by ImmunoGen. Though these two molecules haven’t begun human testing, Junius made a good case for why they are important to his company and why they could prove valuable for the treatment of certain types of cancer.

Junius, who became CEO of ImmunoGen in 2009, wants his company to expand its own internal pipeline of compounds along with continuing its partnerships in which it shares rights to other products with drug giants such as Genentech (a unit of Swiss healthcare firm Roche) and Sanofi-Aventis. “We’re working very hard to be moving from a partner-based company—although that will still have a role—to being one that is much more focused on proprietary compounds,” he says.

This thinking makes sense given the impact of a recent regulatory setback for Genentech’s T-DM1 on ImmunoGen. The FDA handed Roche/Genentech a “refusal to file” letter in late August, essentially saying it wouldn’t accept the firm’s application for accelerated marketing approval of T-DM1 as a breast cancer treatment because of the agency’s opinion that the experimental treatment did not quality at this time for that faster-than-usual type of review. Some investors immediately fled from ImmunoGen’s stock, sending its shares down more than 35 percent on August 27, the day that Roche announced the “refuse to file” letter.

ImmunoGen’s stock has since recovered the value it lost on the day of the FDA letter, and Roche is still advancing T-DM1 through the third and final stage of clinical trials normally required for FDA approval. ImmunoGen also announced a partnership deal in October with Novartis that brought the firm $45 million in upfront cash and the opportunity for additional payments related to specific compounds within the collaboration. (ImmunoGen’s stock closed at $8.80 per share on Thursday, giving the company a market value of $598.7 million.)

The two compounds that the company plans to highlight today are called IMGN859 and IMGN529. Like T-DM1, these compounds combine the ability of antibodies to home in on tumor targets with the killer punch of an anti-cancer toxin. The firm uses linkers to keep the toxins bound to the antibody while it is in the bloodstream, limiting exposure to the anti-cancer agent on healthy tissues. ImmunoGen is reserving some of the details on its latest two compounds until a scientific meeting later this year.

Junius says that the compound called IMGN529 features an antibody with an affinity for an undisclosed target on non-Hodgkin’s lymphomas, a cancer of the white blood cells. In fact, the firm’s antibody alone—without any extra kick from an attached toxin—compared favorably in models of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma with available antibody drugs such as Biogen Idec (NASDAQ:BIIB) and Genentech’s lucrative … Next Page »

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Lebanon, NH-based Adimab, which is developing a yeast-based human antibody discovery technology, has raised $4 million in a Series E funding round, CEO and co-founder Tillman Gerngross confirmed today. The financing was first revealed in a filing on the SEC website yesterday.

Adimab raised the new funding round at a pre-money valuation of $520 million, which is double the value of the company when it raised its Series D round led by Google Ventures in October 2009, Gerngross said. For this latest round, the firm raised funds from all previous backers, which include Google, Borealis Ventures, OrbiMed Advisors, Polaris Venture Partners, and SV Life Sciences. The purpose of the funding is to support the company’s rapid growth, the CEO said.

“We are expanding faster than I thought we would,” Gerngross said. The firm planned to grow to 50 employees this year but is now expecting to ramp up to 60 workers.

Adimab, founded in 2007, has already reported research collaborations based on its technology for rapidly discovering potential antibody drugs with four of the largest drug companies in the world—Merck & Co. (NYSE:MRK), Novartis (NYSE:NVS), Pfizer (NYSE:PFE), and Roche. The firm plans to announce multiple new research collaborations in the coming weeks, Gerngross said.

Gerngross did not say exactly how much money his firm has raised from investors, but said the total was less than $30 million.

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New England area biotechs made the news this week with FDA approvals, clinical study results, new financings, and partnership news. We also saw a few interesting trend and profile pieces on drugmakers.

—Boston-based Gelesis, a biotech working on treating obesity, announced that its technology helped rats reduce their food intake over 18 hours when compared to a placebo. The startup is developing a capsule that—when taken with water—is designed to swell 100-fold in the stomach to make patients feel fuller.

—Waltham, MA-based ImmunoGen (NASDAQ: IMGN) announced it will get $45 million upfront from Novartis in exchange for exclusive rights to use its technology to make antibody-based drugs for cancer targets of Novartis’ choosing. ImmunoGen, whose technology combines an antibody’s targeting capabilities with potent, cancer-killing toxins, could also stand to receive $200 million in milestones per target that leads to a cancer drug, and royalties on the drug sales.

—InfraReDx, a Burlington, MA-based medical imaging startup, said it raised $21 million in Series D funding from new and return backers. The firm is putting its cash toward U.S. sales of its FDA-approved coronary imaging system, which combines near infrared light and ultrasound technology to provide detailed images of a type of fatty plaque in the arteries.

—Waltham-based Alkermes (NASDAQ: ALKS) announced it had received FDA approval of its extended-release formulation of naltrexone (Vivitrol) for the purpose of preventing relapse of opioid drug dependence. The drug, injected once per month, received approval in 2006 for treating alcohol dependence.

—Ryan rounded up some of the major storylines—both past and evolving in the future—surrounding the New England biotech scene, including the influence of … Next Page »

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We saw a number of startup financings, acquisitions, and partnership deals in the healthcare IT, cleantech, life sciences, Web, and software spaces this week in New England.

—Black Duck Software, a Waltham, MA-based open source software firm, announced that it had purchased Ohloh.net from Geeknet (NASDAQ: GKNT) for an undisclosed sum. Black Duck said it will maintain Ohloh’s free open source directory and software developer Web community, and will integrate the directory into its own code search site, Koders.com.

—Cambridge, MA-based cleantech startup Sun Catalytix announced it had raised a $9.5 million Series B round, led by global conglomerate Tata Limited, owner of the largest auto company in India. Existing backer Polaris Venture Partners also participated in the second-round funding for Sun Catalytix, whose technology is built around MIT professor Daniel Nocera’s discovery of a process that uses water, electricity, and a low-cost catalyst to split water molecules into oxygen and hydrogen. The hydrogen can then be used to power fuel cells, engines, and energy-storage systems, the company says.

—NitroSecurity, a Portsmouth, NH-based maker of cybersecurity and event-management software, wrapped up a $6 million Series B financing, led by existing backers Brookline Venture Partners, First Analysis, and NewSpring Ventures. NitroSecurity also said it acquired the security business unit of LogMatrix of Marlborough, MA, an IT and network management company.

—Waltham-based biotech ImmunoGen (NASDAQ:IMGN) said it inked a deal with Novartis, who will pay $45 million for the exclusive rights to use ImnunoGen’s technology to make antibody drugs for several cancer targets. The firm will also finance ImmunoGen’s development expenses plus some research and manufacturing costs. ImmunoGen could receive $200 million in milestones for each target picked by Novartis that leads to a cancer drug, in addition to royalties on sales of the drugs.

—FashionPlaytes, a Salem, MA-based Web startup, added another $4 million, to bring its Series A round up to $5.8 million. The financing was led by new investor Fairhaven Capital, and was joined by existing FashionPlaytes backers New Atlantic Ventures, LaunchCapital, and Golden Seeds. The website enables girls ages five to 12 to design custom clothing using a game-like interface.

—Waltham- and Menlo Park, CA-based Battery Ventures announced it had bought clinical laboratory data management software maker Data Innovations—its third acquisition of a healthcare-focused software firm in the past three years. Financial terms for the deal weren’t disclosed.

—InfraReDx, a Burlington, MA-based maker of coronary imaging systems, said it raised $21 million in Series D funding from new and existing investors. Its technology combines infrared light and intravascular ultrasound techniques to create detailed images of fatty plaque in the arteries. The newest cash will help kick off U.S. sales of InfraReDX’s newest generation system, which nabbed FDA approval this summer.

—Waltham-based Care.com, a provider of a website for rating family care services, announced it had pulled in $20 million in funding, led by New Enterprise Associates and joined by return investors Matrix Partners and Trinity Ventures.

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Polaris Venture Partners, a $3 billion-plus venture firm, has found more capital to back technology and life sciences firms. The Waltham, MA-based venture firm has closed on $233.8 million of a planned $400 million for its Polaris Venture Partners VI LP fund, according to an SEC filing.

When people talk about the leading venture funds, Polaris Venture Partners usually finds its way onto their short lists. Terry McGuire, a co-founder and general partner of the firm, recently finished a term as chairman of the National Venture Capital Association. Under the leadership of McGuire and others at Polaris, the firm has racked up some wins over the past decade with its investments in such companies as Cambridge, MA-based Alnylam Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:ALNY), Cambridge-based Akamai Technologies (NASDAQ:AKAM), and the Lebanon, NH-based biotech GlycoFi (now part of Merck & Co.)

However, Polaris appears to have pared down the target for its latest fund from a previously reported $500 million to $400 million, VentureWire reported. Polaris, which also has an office in Seattle, raised $1 billion for its last fund in 2006. McGuire declined to comment on the new fund this morning.

Yet small, focused funds appear to be a way forward for venture firms, which struggled to deliver returns to investors over the past decade. Polaris has also looked to build stronger ties with the startup community through its Dogpatch Labs. Dogpatch provides early-stage entrepreneurs with cheap office space and access to a network of investors and other startups. Polaris launched the program in San Francisco in 2007 and expanded it to Cambridge and New York City last year.

Wade, who leads Xconomy’s tech coverage in San Francisco, covered the recent growth of Dogpatch’s Cambridge offices in April. At the time, Dogpatch hosted about 100 entrepreneurs at its three locations.

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It was a busy week for Northwest deals, as companies tried to beat the holiday rush. Lots of action in software, mobile, and biotech.

—Seattle-based Swype, maker of text-input software for touch screens, raised $5.6 million in a Series B round led by Samsung Ventures, Nokia Growth Partners, and Benaroya Capital. Swype released its first product earlier this month and is planning to use its new funds to expand to mobile devices around the world.

—Seattle Genetics, the Bothell, WA-based biotech firm (NASDAQ: SGEN), inked a partnership with Millennium: The Takeda Oncology Company, based in Cambridge, MA, to co-develop and market an “empowered antibody” cancer drug for Hodgkin’s disease and related lymphomas, as Luke reported. Millennium will pay $60 million upfront and make milestone payments worth $230 million, in exchange for exclusive commercial rights to the drug in all countries except the U.S. and Canada. Meanwhile, last week, Roche’s U.S.-based Genentech unit canceled a three-year partnership with Seattle Genetics to co-develop an antibody for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and multiple myeloma.

—Seattle’s Widevine Technologies, which makes software for delivering online video to mobile phones, TVs, and other consumer devices, raised $15 million in equity funding from Liberty Global, Samsung Ventures, and an unnamed corporation. Widevine was founded in 1999 and has raised more than $65 million in equity and debt financing.

—Microsoft had a busy week. The Redmond, WA-based software firm (NASDAQ: MSFT) acquired Sentillion, a healthcare software company based in Andover, MA, for an undisclosed price. It plans to incorporate Sentillion’s technology into the Microsoft Amalga Unified Intelligence System for hospitals. Microsoft also acquired Toronto-based Opalis Software, a maker of data center and IT management software for process automation. Financial terms were not announced.

—Speaking of IT management, Microsoft also formed a three-year strategic partnership with NetApp (NASDAQ: NTAP), a Sunnyvale, CA-based data storage and virtualization firm. The deal calls for the two companies to collaborate on products in virtualization, storage and data management, and cloud computing. Financial details weren’t given.

—Dendreon, the Seattle biotech company blazing trails in prostate cancer treatment and “cancer vaccines,” raised $409 million by selling 15 million shares, plus 2.25 million more to its underwriters who exercised their options. Luke reported the story behind the stock offering here. Dendreon (NASDAQ: DNDN) has raised a total of $630 million this year to manufacture and market its cancer treatment, as it seeks FDA approval.

—Portland, OR-based Solar Nation raised $2 million in equity financing, as part of a $5 million commitment from Luxembourg-based Lynx Industries to help expand the startup’s North American operations. Solar Nation was founded in 2008 and develops solar energy technologies for government agencies, businesses, and nonprofits.

—Redmond, WA-based Sammsoft, a maker of security and privacy software for personal computers, was acquired by support.com (NASDAQ: SPRT), a Silicon Valley-based Internet firm, for $8.5 million in cash. The assets of Xeriton, Sammsoft’s parent company, were also acquired.

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It was a crazy busy week for deals in the Northwest. Just when we thought the flow might slow down before the end of summer, we saw tons of activity in software, Internet, mobile, gaming, and materials.

—Bellevue, WA-based Apptio, the IT cost management startup led by CEO Sunny Gupta, raised $14 million in Series B funding from Madrona Venture Group, Greylock Partners, Shasta Ventures, and the Andreessen Horowitz Fund. The money will allow Apptio to aggressively expand its sales and product development. Gupta also had some telling things to say about his company’s culture.

—Seattle-based Impinj has teamed up with Coca-Cola to provide radio frequency identification tags and readers for the soda giant’s new Freestyle drink dispensers. Financial terms were not given. The Impinj technology will allow Coke to track and monitor its dispenser operations and customer preferences in real time.

—Hillsboro, OR-based AISI, maker of a testing system for semiconductor memory manufacturing, closed a Series B financing round worth $11 million, as Eric reported. Investors in this round included OVP Venture Partners, TL Ventures, and Intel Capital.

—Seattle and San Francisco-based Jambool raised $5 million in venture funding, led by Madrona Venture Group. Bay Partners also participated in the financing round. Jambool has developed a micropayments and virtual currency system for social online games.

—Vancouver, WA-based ClearAccess raised about $6 million in Series B funding from Blade Ventures, Buerk Dale Victor, and DFJ Frontier, as Eric reported. ClearAccess provides data services and broadband device management for Internet service providers.

—Kirkland, WA-based OVP Venture Partners led a $14 million Series B financing round for Boston-based Novomer, a green materials startup, as Wade reported. Physic Venture Partners, Flagship Venture Partners, and DSM Venturing also participated in the round.

—Seattle-based iLike is rumored to be bought by MySpace for some $20 million, as Eric reported. The deal could close by the end of this week. Founded in 2002, iLike is an Internet music company that helps people find new music and concerts and create playlists.

—Seattle-based NewPath Networks, a provider of wireless carrier network technologies, announced a new $10 million line of credit from Square 1 Bank. Back in April, NewPath raised $30 million from New York-based Charterhouse Group and Denver-based Meritage Funds. NewPath designs and operates antenna systems for wireless networks.

—Seattle Genetics (NASDAQ: SGEN), a Bothell, WA-based developer of antibody drugs for cancer, raised $136 million in a stock sale, as Luke reported. JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs led the offering. Seattle Genetics is six months ahead of schedule in a pivotal study of its experimental drug for Hodgkin’s disease.

—Seattle-based Z2Live, a mobile social games startup, has raised $3 million from Madrona Venture Group, according to a report in TechCrunch. Z2Live has developed a free, multiplayer platform for social and casual games on the iPhone and iPod Touch.

—Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) and Nokia (NYSE: NOK) announced an alliance that will create adaptations of Microsoft programs, like Office, for Nokia smartphones. Financial terms weren’t given, but the two companies will jointly market the products they create together. Nokia’s Symbian mobile operating system has been a major competitor to Microsoft’s Windows Mobile platform.

—Lastly, we provided some more in-depth analysis of Microsoft’s sale of Seattle-based Razorfish to Publicis for $530 million, from Cascadia Capital’s Warren Gouk, an expert on mergers and Internet strategy. Gouk said Microsoft stands to gain a lot if the deal drives its search and display advertising business, while Razorfish could expand its international market.

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We had some good news, mixed news, and odd news about San Diego’s life sciences companies over the past week. Read on for our full spectrum of coverage.

—San Diego’s Intellikine said in a recent regulatory filing that it had raised $16 million in venture capital, and plans to raise an additional $22.5 million. But that was only part of the story. The startup biotech, which is developing a new class of cancer drugs, said in a statement yesterday it actually has closed on $28.5 million in the current venture round, and up to $22.5 million can be accessed, depending on Intellikine’s ability to meet certain performance goals. The company also identified the four new investors who participated in the round: Novartis Bioventures, which is lead investor in the current round; Biogen Idec (NASDAQ: BIIB); FinTech Global Capital; and U.S. Venture Partners. Three existing investors also put money in: Sofinnova Ventures, Abingworth Management, and CMEA Ventures.

—When an FDA advisory panel recently recommended new restrictions on the pain reliever acetaminophen, Luke checked in with San Diego’s Cadence Pharmaceuticals to see how that would affect its development of Acetavance—the first intravenous form of acetaminophen. Cadence CEO Ted Schroeder said it’s not a concern, however, because clinical trials showed Acetavance the intravenous treatment provided effective pain relief at lower doses than the levels that raised safety concerns for the FDA panel. Cadence, which is awaiting FDA approval for the pain reliever, plans to market it to hospitals as a safer alternative to narcotics for patients who can’t take oral medications.

—San Diego’s Somaxon Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq:SOMX) says the FDA has accepted the company’s revised new drug application for its insomnia drug doxepin (Silenor). The biotech also raised about $6 million in a private stock placement, which should be enough to carry it through the next 12 months.

—San Diego’s Vical (NASDAQ:VICL), which is developing DNA-based vaccines, said it’s encouraged by early results from a mid-stage trial of a vaccine it’s developing for cytomegalovirus. But Vical said complete results from the study won’t be done until early 2010.

—San Diego’s Lpath (OTC:LPTN), which is developing antibody drugs for cancer, told Denise the dismissal of its outside auditor was an unfortunate case of bad timing. A spokesman for Lpath explained that the company decided to change accounting firms some time ago, but Lpath didn’t have a replacement auditor lined up before proxy ballots were printed. So Lpath asked shareholders at its June 24 annual meeting to vote to approve the retention of LevitZacks—then dismissed the firm five days later.

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Tillman Gerngross is wont to say that the antibody-drug discovery technology his biotech startup, Adimab, is developing is a game-changer. Now it looks like two of the largest drug companies in the world might agree—Lebanon, NH-based Adimab plans to announce today that Merck & Co. and Roche have signed on as its first research collaborators.

Merck (NYSE:MRK), based in Whitehouse Station, NJ, has tasked Adimab with using its proprietary yeast-based discovery technology to identify human antibodies for undisclosed disease targets of Merck’s choosing. Gerngross, the startup’s CEO and co-founder, says that Merck doesn’t get to use the discovery technology itself. The arrangement with Swiss drug giant Roche will work the same way, yet the key difference is that it is focused on just one undisclosed drug target. Both deals provide Adimab with upfront payments and licensing fees, as well as potential fees for achieving pre-clinical milestones. The drug companies also have the option to commercialize antibodies discovered as part of their collaborations with Adimab, making the startup eligible for additional payments. Exact financial terms weren’t disclosed.

These deals provide some commercial validation for Adimab’s technology, which Gerngross has been touting as a completely original process for discovering antibody drugs. Gerngross, who co-founded Adimab with MIT protein engineering expert K. Dane Wittrup, has made a compelling enough case for the technology to attract venture investments from Polaris Venture Partners, SV Life Sciences, Borealis Ventures, and OrbiMed Advisors. As I wrote in a story about Adimab in February, the firm is developing a simulated immune system that consists of yeast cells that are engineered to produce and present on their surfaces some 10 billion different antibodies. Researchers can use the system to identify potential new treatments by introducing disease-related molecules such as tumor proteins into to the system and seeing which antibodies bind to those targets. The system can identify antibodies for certain disease targets in matter of eight weeks, which can be several months faster than available antibody-discovery techniques, Gerngross says.

The deal with Merck represents a return to what has been a productive well for Gerngross. In 2006, Merck paid $400 million for … Next Page »

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There wasn’t a lot of headline news in Seattle biotech in the last week, but we found several interesting features that offer previews of what’s coming in the worlds of new drugs and devices.

–I learned about a small nonprofit in the Tri-Cities that has come up with a simple, elegant way to fix broken bones in the developing world without using expensive equipment. The organization, called Sign, has caught the eye of Seattle-based PATH, the global health organization, which has ideas for bringing this idea to the world stage.

–Medical device companies often fly below the radar, and we found one in our backyard that is developing artificial spine implants. Archus Orthopedics could do for the spine what orthopedists have been doing for years with modern hip and knee replacements.

–The former No. 2 executive at Icos, Gary Wilcox, re-emerged on the biotech scene last week in a big way, as chairman and CEO of Cocrystal Discovery, an antiviral drugmaker that has raised $10 million from an investment fund led by billionaire entrepreneur Phillip Frost. Memorable quote from the 61-year-old Wilcox: “I feel like I’m 21 again.”

–I sat down with Lee Huntsman, the director of Washington’s Life Sciences Discovery Fund for an in-depth interview about how this 10-year, $350 million program intends to make an impact on the local biotech sector. Readers are free to draw their own conclusions, but here’s his take on why Washington’s approach stacks up fairly well with the big boys from California and Massachusetts.

–Alder Biopharmaceuticals gave me the inside scoop on how it plans to take on Roche with a “fast-follower” antibody drug for rheumatoid arthritis. It’s an exciting time at Alder—we’ll know within a year if this drug is a serious threat to one of the world’s biggest pharma players.

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