New CEOs, new financings, new approvals, and new data—it was an interesting week for New England’s life sciences companies.

—Cambridge, MA-based Molecular Insight Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:MIPI) named a new president and CEO, Daniel Peters, just months after giving that post to co-founder John Babich. Babich will stay on as chief scientific officer of Molecular, which is developing a cardiac imaging agent called Zemiva.

—Artisan Pharma of Waltham, MA, indicated in an SEC filing that it has raised $9.4 million of an $11.8 million round of debt financing from undisclosed sources. Artisan is developing a treatment for a blood-clotting condition in patients with sepsis.

—Ryan chatted with Jeff Carbeck, co-founder of Watertown, MA-based Arsenal Medical, chief scientist at Cambridge, MA-based Nano-Terra, and newly named New England Clean Energy Council fellow. One of the top chemical engineers to come out of the lab of Harvard’s George Whitesides, Carbeck is bringing material science discoveries to bear not only in medical products but also in clean technology and a host of other industries.

—Cambridge, MA-based OmniGuide raised $1.8 million in an equity financing, according to an SEC filing that did not disclose investors in the deal. OmniGuide is developing fiber-optic laser scalpels for minimally invasive surgery.

—Biogen Idec (NASDAQ: BIIB) launched a one-two punch at Carl Icahn, the billionaire investor campaigning to take over the board of the Cambridge, MA-based biotech giant. In a first regulatory filing, Biogen disputed Icahn’s criticism of its leadership, pipeline, dealmaking, and stock price—and argued that Icahn’s nominees for the Biogen board would … Next Page »

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London-based drug giant GlaxoSmithKline has quietly spun off a biotech startup, Tempero Pharmaceuticals, in the life sciences haven of Cambridge, MA, to develop drugs to treat diseases in which the immune system goes awry and attacks healthy tissues, Xconomy has learned.

Tempero was incorporated in March, according to state of Delaware corporate records. The word has been out at least several months that Glaxo (NYSE:GSK) planned to spin off a project from its Immuno-Inflammation Centre of Excellence in Drug Discovery into a biotech startup. Glaxo revealed back in February at a Massachusetts Biotechnology Council event that the startup—which it didn’t name at the time—would focus on “advances in T-cell biology… to develop novel medicines for inflammatory and autoimmune diseases.”

Spiros Jamas, who managed the T cell project at Glaxo, is leading Tempero Pharmaceuticals as the startup’s CEO, according to a source familiar with the matter. Jamas was previously a global healthcare analyst for Boston-based financial firm State Street (NYSE:STT). Earlier in his career he served as chief executive of Enanta Pharmaceuticals, a Watertown, MA-based firm developing a drug for hepatitis C virus, as well as former biotech Alpha-Beta Technology, which was developing an anti-infective treatment before ending operations in the Worcester, MA, area several years ago. Jamas told me in an e-mail that he wasn’t in a position to talk about Tempero, and Glaxo’s U.S. corporate media office in North Carolina also declined to comment.

It’s unclear why Glaxo isn’t developing Tempero’s science internally. However, Glaxo has made efforts in the past to divide its vast research and development organization into smaller units that are highly focused on particular diseases. (For more on this strategy, check out this colorful piece from the InVivo Blog.) Also, Sirtris, the Cambridge, MA, biotech firm acquired by Glaxo last June for $720 million, continues to operate much like an independent biotech firm with its own offices, drug-development programs, and executive team.

There’s good reason for large drug makers such as Glaxo to adapt R&D operations to have the nimbleness and laser focus associated with biotech firms—the giant research divisions of the past have largely failed to produce enough new drugs to fuel their organizations. It’s no secret that drugs that generate tens of billions of dollars in annual revenue for major drug companies are expected to lose patent protection between now and 2012. From now through 2012, Glaxo is expected to lose patent protections on drugs—such as diabetes drug Avandia, osteoporosis treatment Bonviva, and cancer drug Hycamtin—that generated 2008 sales of $2 billion.

Perhaps a good dose of biotech business strategy, like the one Glaxo is employing with Tempero, will be good medicine for pharma companies.

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This week it was insanely humid in the Boston area, so we were relieved to learn that Living Proof had begun selling its frizz-fighting hair products online. That, and the rest of the week’s (perhaps more weighty) life sciences news, below.

—Luke caught up with Millennium Pharmaceuticals CEO Deborah Dunsire four months after her Cambridge, MA-based firm was taken over by Japan-based Takeda Pharmaceutical. Dunsire reports that the $8.8 billion acquisition has been good to Millennium—Takeda has giving the Cambridge outfit a lot of autonomy and room to grow, and has entrusted it with the responsibility for not only the drugs in its own pipeline but also for overseeing clinical trials for 10 cancer drugs from the Japanese firm’s worldwide discovery operations.

—Cambridge, MA-based Living Proof, the super-secretive developer of super-scientific salon products, launched a one-month online sale of its anti-frizz hair sprays, creams, and the like. Still no word on exactly what new technology is in there, but the Polaris Venture Partners-backed startup has ties to some heavyweight inventors from MIT and Harvard.

—Swiss drug giant Novartis unveiled plans for a new vaccine-research facility in Cambridge, MA. By the end of next year Novartis expects to add an additional 150 employees in Cambridge, boosting its presence here to more than 1,800 workers.

—Dredging up some memories from eighth-grade biology (homeostasis ring any bells?) Luke took a closer look at the science behind Cambridge, MA-based Proteostasis Therapeutics, which recently raised an eye-popping $45 million first round of financing from HealthCare Ventures, Fidelity Biosciences, New Enterprise Associates, Novartis Option Fund, and Genzyme Ventures. The startup is working on drugs that promote or restore the balance of proteins in the body as a novel way of confronting ailments such as Alzheimer’s disease or Parkinson’s disease.

—Watertown, MA-based Enanta Pharmaceuticals launched an early stage clinical trial of EDP-322, an oral antibiotic for bacteria resistant to other potent antibiotics such as vancomycin, Pfizer’s Zyvox, and Cubist Pharmaceuticals’ Cubicin.

—Sirtris, a Cambridge, MA-based firm recently acquired by British drug giant GlaxoSmithKline (NYSE: GSK), nabbed two exclusive licenses to Harvard University patents related to SIRT3, an enzyme believed to protect against cellular damage. Much of Sirtris’ research focuses on the related enzyme SIRT1.

—At a scientific meeting, Lexington, MA-based GI Dynamics presented data showing that its sleeve-like gut-lining device helps patients with Type 2 diabetes lower their blood sugar and their weight. The device, which can be inserted and removed via the mouth, could eventually provide an alternative to gastric bypass surgery.

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Enanta Pharmaceuticals, a Watertown, MA-based developer of anti-infection drugs, said today it has started an early stage clinical of an oral antibiotic for drug-resistant bacteria. The drug, EDP-322, is being tested for hospital and community-acquired infections, including drug-resistant MRSA. In previous animal tests, the drug showed activity against MRSA strains that resist other potent antibiotics like vancomycin, Pfizer’s Zyvox, and Cubist Pharmaceuticals’ Cubicin.

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