We saw an interesting mix of financings, collaborations, and research news from New England’s drug and medical device developers this week.

—HealthCare Ventures put $15 million in Series A funding into Cambridge, MA-based Tensha Therapeutics, a startup developing small-molecule drugs designed to treat cancer and other diseases by regulating the expression of disease-associated genes.

—Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital said it will use technology from Cambridge-based GNS Healthcare (part of Via Science) to help manage the cost of treating congestive heart failure patients. GNS Healthcare will apply its computer simulation models to predict the likelihood that the hospital patients will experience adverse drug events or readmission.

—Henri Termeer, who was CEO of Cambridge-based Genzyme before its acquisition by Sanofi-Aventis, donated $10 million to Massachusetts General Hospital to establish the new Henri and Belinda Termeer Center for Targeted Therapies. It will focus on developing more personalized cancer drugs, initially for certain genetic forms of breast cancer, lung cancer, and leukemias.

—Natick, MA-based Boston Scientific (NASDAQ: BSX) revealed that it will be bringing in Michael Mahoney as president starting next month and as CEO in November 2012. Current CEO Ray Elliott announced in May that he’d be stepping down; soon-to-be interim CEO Hank Kucheman will have the job until Mahoney, formerly worldwide chairman of Johnson & Johnson’s medical device and diagnostics group, takes the chief executive role.

—GI Dynamics, a Lexington, MA-based medical device developer, went public on the Australian stock exchange to raise the $80 million it needed to get through the next three years, wrote Xconomy New York editor Arlene Weintraub. The company is looking to get regulatory approval for its device to be used as a treatment for obesity and type 2 diabetes.

—NABsys, a Providence, RI-based maker of gene-sequencing tools, took in a $10 million Series C investment from Stata Venture Partners. The Needham, MA-based firm, founded by semiconductor pioneer Ray Stata, also led NABsys’ $7 million Series B funding round. The startup said it will use the new financing for development and commercialization of its solid-state electronic systems for single-molecule DNA sequencing and analysis.  The company is similar to Ion Torrent, a new unit of Carlsbad, CA-based Life Sciences that’s using semiconductor technology in its gene-sequencing machine.

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Earlier this year, Lexington, MA-based GI Dynamics faced a challenge that’s all too common these days in life sciences: It needed to raise $80 million to get through the next three years, and there are limited options for medical-device companies seeking that much cash. The company is developing a weight-loss device, and the money was vital to commercialize the product overseas and start new U.S. trials.

“The U.S. IPO market was closed,” says Michael Carusi, a general partner at Advanced Technology Ventures (ATV), one of GI Dynamics’ early investors. “And we didn’t want to do two $40 million private rounds.”

So on September 7, GI Dynamics went public on the Australian stock exchange, which, when combined with a simultaneous private offering, brought in all $80 million. Why Australia? First of all, GI Dynamics introduced its device, called EndoBarrier Gastrointestinal Liner, to the Australian market last month. “When companies launch products in a market, investors there hear buzz,” Carusi says. Secondly, he adds, Australian investors have more of a buy-and-hold mentality when it comes to life sciences companies than U.S. investors do.

That patience will likely come in handy for GI Dynamics’ investors. The company hopes to get regulatory approvals around the world to use its device to treat two separate but related epidemics: obesity and Type 2 diabetes. It’s an ambitious plan, especially at a time when the FDA is under pressure to improve its scrutiny of medical devices. Regulatory approval in the U.S. vs. other countries, says GI Dynamics CEO Stuart Randle, “will be a much longer process.”

The EndoBarrier is a two-foot-long device that doctors can implant into the intestine during a minimally invasive endoscopic procedure. It acts as a block along part of the intestine wall, which slows down digestion and … Next Page »

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New England biotech firms are roaring out of summer with news of fundraising, hires, regulatory moves, and acquisitions.

—Cambridge, MA-based medical imaging startup Lantos Technologies announced a new round of funding and a new CEO. The firm pulled in $4.1 million in Series B money—led by return Lantos investor Excel Venture Management and with participation from previous backers Catalyst Health Ventures and Mass Medical Angels—and hired former Biocius Life Sciences CEO Jeffrey Leathe as its new chief executive.

—Merck KGaA’s Billerica, MA-based subsidiary EMD Millipore said it had agreed to acquire Amnis of Seattle for an undisclosed sum. Amnis spun out of the University of Washington in 1998 and makes an imaging device providing detailed images of a large number of cells.

—GI Dynamics, a Lexington, MA-based developer of medical devices for treating diabetes and obesity, went public in Australia, raising $85 million USD in its IPO.

—Xconomy national biotech editor Luke Timmerman profiled George Scangos and his path as chief executive of (for now) Weston, MA-based Biogen Idec (NASDAQ: BIIB).

—Waltham, MA-based Repligen is finishing up its application for FDA approval of synthetic human secretin (SecreFlo), a hormone-based drug designed to enhance MRI images of the pancreas, as my colleague Arlene wrote. The product has already nabbed fast-track status from the FDA, meaning Repligen will receive a verdict from the agency within six months of submitting the application.

—Pfizer said it will be adding space for 300 employees in Cambridge’s Kendall Square, with a 10-year lease for more than 180,000 square feet. The company had previously announced job cuts in its global research and development operations.

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It looks like New England’s tech and life sciences firms are working to ink financing, collaboration, and acquisition deals before the holiday weekend hits.

—Digital media and video-hosting firm Brightcove filed paperwork with the SEC indicating its hopes to raise $50 million in an initial public offering. Morgan Stanley and Stifel, Nicolaus & Company will serve as joint book-running managers for the deal for Brightcove, which is based in Cambridge, MA, but is planning a move to Boston.

—Verizon Communications said it acquired Burlington, MA-based CloudSwitch, whose technology creates a temporary work space on a cloud service for companies to run virtualized applications as if they were still running on their home infrastructure. CloudSwitch—which has raised $15 million from investors like Atlas Venture, Matrix Partners, and Commonwealth Capital Ventures—will be rolled into Verizon’s Terremark IT services division, working in enterprise cloud services. The CloudSwitch Burlington office will remain and even expand, the companies said.

—Buzzient, a Boston-based maker of analytics software enabling companies to use social media to track customer sentiment, raised $1.1 million in equity funding. The deal was led by Buzzient CEO Timothy Bernard Jones’ seed fund, TBJ Investments, and included Buzzient board members John Luongo and Ann Fudge, and serial entrepreneurs Allen Graber (of Atlanta) and Ralf Faber (Boston). The money will go to new hires in development, sales, and marketing.

—Norwood, MA-based early stage investment fund Advancit Capital raised $3.2 million. The newly formed firm is co-founded by Shari Redstone, daughter of CBS and Viacom director and National Amusements president Sumner Redstone, and will focus on investments in media, entertainment, and tech startups.

—Adimab, a Lebanon, NH-based developer of human antibody discovery technology, signed collaboration deals with Biogen Idec and Novo Nordisk. Each firm will use the Adimab technology to identify human antibodies against two targets of their choosing. Neither deal terms nor specific targets were disclosed, but Adimab will receive upfront payments and preclinical milestones, and could be eligible for clinical development milestones and sales royalties if the antibodies discovered are commercialized.

—EMD Millipore, the Billerica, MA-based subsidiary of Merck KGaA, has agreed to acquire Seattle-based Amnis for an undisclosed sum, in a deal expected to close fourth quarter of this year.

—Lexington, MA-based GI Dynamics, a maker of medical devices targeting obesity and diabetes, raised $80 million in Australian dollars ($85 million USD) in an initial public offering in the country, according to a report from The Australian. It had initially targeted an Australian IPO worth between $85 million and $102 million in U.S. dollars.

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Lexington, MA-based GI Dynamics, a medical device developer focused on treating obesity and diabetes, has raised $85 million ($80 million in Australian dollars) in an initial public offering in Australia, according to an online report from The Australian.

Earlier this summer the firm indicated that it hoped to go public in Australia, bringing in between $85 million and $102 million in U.S. dollars.

GI—backed by Advanced Technology Ventures, Cutlass Capital, Domain Associates, Johnson & Johnson Development, Polaris Venture Partners, and Seedling Enterprises—has been developing an intestinal liner and other devices aimed to limit the absorption of calories and nutrients in the gut. The products are designed to be less invasive than the cutting and stapling required for gastric bypass surgeries.

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The IPO market seems to be heating up around the country, but will Boston get left behind? A couple of local companies are trying to do their part, joining the likes of Kayak, Carbonite, and others that have filed papers to go public.

The latest ones are GI Dynamics, a medical device maker targeting obesity and diabetes, and Exa, which makes simulation software to help auto makers test aerodynamics and other features of their vehicles.

—Lexington, MA-based GI Dynamics has filed paperwork in Australia for an initial public offering of between $80 million and $95 million in Australian dollars—roughly $85 million to $102 million in U.S. dollars. Shares won’t be issued until August 11 at the earliest. Starting in 2008, Xconomy profiled GI Dynamics’ efforts to test and gain regulatory approval for its experimental intestinal liner that limits absorption of calories and nutrients in the patient’s gut, as well as subsequent developments. The company’s investors include Advanced Technology Ventures, Cutlass Capital, Domain Associates, Johnson & Johnson Development, Polaris Venture Partners, and Seedling Enterprises.

—Burlington, MA-based Exa filed a form S-1 with the SEC stating that it plans to raise up to $86.25 million in its IPO. Exa makes software for modeling complex fluid flow, which can be applied to problems of aerodynamics, wind noise, and heat management in cars and trucks. The company says it’s profitable and its annual revenues have increased for 17 consecutive years since its first commercial revenue in 1994. Its investors include Fidelity Ventures and Boston Capital Ventures.

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There must be a million ideas to help the many millions of obese Americans lose weight. Today, doctors will get a glimpse at a first-of-its-kind treatment from Boston-based Gelesis, where scientists have created a capsule that expands in the stomach to make people feel full and eat less.

Gelesis has said little about this idea since the company was founded with seed financing from Puretech Ventures, plus another $16 million from OrbiMed Advisors, Queensland BioCapital Funds, Puretech, and others in January 2008. Now Gelesis has results from a clinical trial of 95 people who were randomly assigned to take the company’s superabsorbent hydrogel capsules (Attiva) or a placebo. The capsules helped people feel full after meals and less hungry in between, researchers said. And, importantly, the treatment was well-tolerated. The findings were presented at the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists annual meeting in Boston.

Anyone following the news knows that the obesity epidemic in the U.S. has gotten so big that it poses a threat to the healthcare system, and, simultaneously, represents a monster business opportunity. Health officials now say two-thirds of U.S. adults have become overweight or obese, which raises the risk for a whole raft of other conditions like diabetes, heart attacks, and depression to name a few. Doctors often advise people to eat healthier and exercise more, without much luck. A few biotech companies are racing to win FDA approval of new drugs, but Big Pharma companies have tread cautiously in this field since the fen-phen debacle of the ’90s. Gastric bypass surgery to shrink the stomach can help people, although the procedure carries significant risks.

Alessandro Sannino

The idea at Gelesis is to come at this problem with a completely new method. It’s essentially a way to reduce stomach volume without subjecting people to the invasiveness and potential complications of surgery.

“For the first time a group was able to overcome the enormous technical hurdles in creating a super-absorbent polymer,” said Robert Langer, the prominent bioengineering professor at MIT, in a company statement. Langer isn’t a founder of the company, although he advised Puretech Ventures on the technology before the firm seeded Gelesis in 2006. Based on today’s results, Langer added: “This opens the door for entirely new uses of polymers in medicine.”

I took a closer look at this yesterday during a conference call with three key players of Gelesis. Daphne Zohar and Eric Elenko of Puretech Ventures, and the co-inventor of the technology, Alessandro Sannino, a professor of engineering at the University of Sallento in Italy, who has been working on this idea for 15 years. The company also has recruited a lot of prominent advisers with different layers of expertise. James Hill, a University of Colorado professor and past president of The Obesity Society brings obesity knowledge; Allan Geliebter, a phychologist at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital is a pioneer of the gastric balloon; Lee Kaplan of Massachusetts General Hospital Weight Center is a leading researcher in gastric bypass surgery. John LaMattina, a former president of Pfizer’s global R&D operation, has joined the Gelesis board.

You can take a look at how this technique is supposed to work by watching this animation on the Gelesis site, which lasts a little less than four minutes. But’s here the concept in a nutshell: Gelesis has developed a superabsorbent polymer from some unspecified food source. This material, about the size of a grain of sugar, is designed to swell up more than 100-fold … Next Page »

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New England’s tech and life sciences companies hit the ground running in the new year, inking a host of deals this week.

—Data storage giant EMC of Hopkinton, MA, made a bold move into the market for governance, risk management, and compliance (GRC) with the acquisition of Overland Park, KS-based Archer Technologies. Archer will become part of EMC’s security division, RSA, when the deal closes, likely before April.

—Mobile advertising firm Quattro Wireless was acquired by Apple for a reported $275 million. Venture backers Highland Capital Partners of Lexington, MA, and Globespan Capital Partners of Boston have put about $28 million into the Waltham, MA-based startup.

—Somerville, MA-based Echo Nest, a startup developing tools for music search and recommendation, raised $1.3 million in new equity financing, according to an SEC filing.

—Acton, MA-based Azuki Systems, a developer of a cloud-based infrastructure for delivering rich media to mobile websites, mobile applications, and desktop widgets, added $3 million to its Series B financing round. The round, now totaling $9 million, was led by Kepha Partners and Sigma Partners.

—Speaking of Acton, Acton Pharmaceuticals (confusingly based in Marlborough, MA, rather than Acton, MA) raised $15 million in a Series A financing round led by Sequoia Capital. Acton plans to begin marketing its first product, an inhalable corticosteroid drug called flunisolide HFA (Aerospan) that’s already been cleared by the FDA, in early 2011.

—Bedford, MA-based MicroCHIPS, a developer of wireless medical implants containing chemical sensors or drug reservoirs, collected $16.5 million in Series C venture funding. Previous backers Polaris Venture Partners, Novartis Venture Fund, Flybridge Capital Partners, Medtronic, Saints Capital, Intersouth Partners, Care Capital, and CSK Venture Capital all returned for the round, and were joined by new investor InterWest Partners.

—Medical device giant Medtronic (NYSE: MDT) made a strategic investment in Lexington, MA-based GI Dynamics, maker of a gut-lining device for treating … Next Page »

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GI Dynamics, the Lexington, MA-based maker of a device for treating obesity and diabetes, said today that the device giant Medtronic (NYSE: MDT) has made a strategic investment in the company. The amount wasn’t disclosed in a statement, although GI Dynamics submitted a regulatory filing that says it just raised $15 million from a single investor. The GI Dynamics technology, called EndoBarrier, is like a sleeve that lines the gut and creates a barrier that controls how food is absorbed into the small intestine. Last month, the company received clearance to market the product in Europe.

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New England’s drug developers and device makers are squeezing in a few more partnerships, acquisitions, financings, and strategic moves before the year’s end.

—Acceleron Pharma, the Cambridge, MA-based biotech that’s building its own drug-making infrastructure rather that outsourcing the work, raised $10.9 million in equity financing, according to an SEC filing. $8 million comes from Cambridge-based biotech Alkermes (NASDAQ:ALKS) as part of a licensing deal, and $2.9 million comes from previous backers.

—Lebanon, NH-based Adimab collected milestone payments from partners Merck and Roche and inked new partnerships with Pfizer and one other unnamed drug company. The pharma firms are all turning to Adimab for its drug discovery technology, which promises to dramatically speed the process of finding new antibody-based drugs against its partners’ chosen targets.

—Aveo Pharmaceuticals, a Cambridge-based developer of cancer drugs and genetically engineered mice used for predicting how well such drugs will work in humans, filed paperwork for an IPO that could be worth as much as $86.25 million. The company, a 2002 spinoff of Boston’s Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, has raised $165 million from investors and pharmaceutical partners.

—Cambridge-based Biogen Idec (NASDAQ: BIIB) withdrew its hostile takeover bid for Facet Biotech (NASDAQ: FACT) after failing to convince a majority of shareholders in the Redwood City, CA-based firm to tender their shares.

–-Agios Pharmaceuticals CEO David Schenkein chatted with Luke about a grant the Cambridge-based company has secured from Accelerate Brain Cancer Cure, an organization founded by AOL founder Steve Case’s family. Though small ($180,000), the grant should help Agios answer some scientific questions key to developing a new treatment for certain brain cancer patients.

—Javelin Pharmaceuticals (AMEX:JAV) of Cambridge agreed to an all-stock merger with Myriad Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:MYRX) of Salt Lake City. The deal would give Javelin shareholders initial control of 41 percent of the stock in the combined company; the figure could climb to as high as 45 percent, depending on if and when Javelin’s lead anti-pain drug, an injected formulation of diclofenac (Dyloject), is approved by the FDA.

—Waltham, MA-based EyeGate Pharma raised $11 million of a planned $22.7 million round of equity financing, according to a regulatory filing. Eyegate is developing technology for delivering drugs directly into the eye.

—Bob visited the a new research group at the MIT Media Lab aimed at transforming healthcare by bringing patients front and center in controlling their own health. The New Media Medicine group, as it’s called, was launched in 2008 under the watch of lab director Frank Moss, who told Bob about the group’s ambitious goals.

—Luke checked in with upstart vaccine developer Genocea Biosciences. The Cambridge-based firm has decided to pursue as its lead product candidate a vaccine that treats a disease (genital herpes) rather than preventing it.

—Lexington, MA-based GI Dynamics garnered European marketing approval for a sleeve-like device that lines the gut to treat Type 2 diabetes and obesity. The firm plans to begin selling the device, called the EndoBarrier, in Europe in the first half of next year.

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GI Dynamics has garnered European marketing approval for its temporary intestinal implant for treating Type 2 diabetes and obesity, according to the Lexington, MA-based firm. The company said it plans to begin selling the device, called the EndoBarrier, in Europe in the first half of 2010. The firm’s venture backers include Advanced Technology Ventures, Catalyst Health Ventures, Cutlass Capital, Domain Associates, Johnson & Johnson Development Corporation, and Polaris Venture Partners.

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Stem cells and RNAi were the subject of a couple of interesting alliances announced this week. More on those, and the rest of the week’s New England life sciences news, below.

—Alkermes (NASDAQ: ALKS), a maker of drugs for central nervous system disorders, addiction, and diabetes, signed a lease to move its headquarters from Cambridge, MA, to Waltham, MA. The move, which should be complete in early 2010, is supposed to save the company $8 million a year starting in fiscal 2011.

—Ryan gave an intriguing look inside Lebanon, NH-based GlycoFi nearly three years after its acquisition for $400 million by drug behemoth Merck. Where such transactions often result in the smaller company’s dismantling and absorption into the larger firm, GlycoFi and its yeast-based technology are now the focal point of Merck’s strategy for taking on the market for generic versions of biotech drugs.

—Stemgent of Cambridge, MA, and Fate Therapeutics of San Diego launched the joint “Catalyst” program to offer new developments in stem (iPS) cell technology to large pharmaceutical companies, big biotech firms, and academic labs for a fee. For Stemgent, the program is an extension of its strategy of selling stem cell technologies from leading academic labs to the research market.

—Luke talked to Al Sandrock, senior vice president of neurology R&D at Cambridge, MA-based Biogen Idec (NASDAQ:BIIB), ahead of the annual meeting of the American Academy of Neurology. Biogen planned to highlight its multiple sclerosis products and pipeline at the meeting; yesterday, for instance, it presented a small study indicating that natalizumab (Tysabri) might help the body actually repair damage done by MS to nerves’ myelin coating.

—Cambridge, MA-based Vertex (NASDAQ: VRTX) reported more positive data on its experimental hepatitis C drug, telaprevir, at a scientific meeting in Denmark. If the results hold up in ongoing pivotal trials and Vertex wins … Next Page »

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GI Dynamics made a lot of noise late last year about the ability of its gut-lining device to help patients struggling with weight problems and Type 2 diabetes to drop pounds while reducing their blood sugar. The device, called the EndoBarrier, is a 2-foot-long flexible sleeve that is placed in the small intestine. Recently the Lexington, MA-based startup began talking about an additional device that significantly boosted weight loss in pigs when combined with the gut liner.

The second device is a plate, made of a Teflon-like material, with a small whole that restricts the flow of partially digested food into the intestine, Andy Levine, chief technology officer at GI Dynamics, tells me. Appropriately named the “Flow Restrictor,” the device showed it could nearly double the rate of weight loss when used with the EndoBarrier, compared with using the EndoBarrier alone. The restrictive plate is intended to slow the rate at which the partially digested food empties from the stomach into the small intestine. Levine says that the devices, which are put in the body through the mouth in a 20-minute procedure, could be less invasive option than the cutting and stapling required for gastric bypass.

“It’s actually very exciting because what it starts to do is really help us to understand how these devices are working,” Levine says.

Despite showing in small studies that its gut-lining device alone could help patients drop an average of 30 pounds in three months in earlier studies, GI Dynamics does not know for sure why those patients lost weight. Levine says that the company believes but is not positive that the EndoBarrier interferes with hormonal signals that control appetite.

With the addition of the plate, the company adds a new element to induce weight loss: restriction. Restriction is a well-known means of controlling weight, and it makes patients feel full more quickly than without it. Two common ways to provide restriction are gastric bypass and gastric banding. (Gastric banding involves the use of a band that is wrapped around the intestine to slow the flow of food into the stomach.) Yet both gastric banding and gastric bypass require surgical incisions while the EndoBarrier and Flow Restrictor are inserted into the intestines through the mouth.

The plan is to seek regulatory clearance for the Flow Restrictor after the firm garners the right to market the EndoBarrier, Levine says. The EndoBarrier is now being tested in a human study to prove that it can be useful in the body for a year. Both the devices are intended to … Next Page »

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Once again, New England’s tech and life sciences firms have managed to eek out a few notable deals despite the daunting climate.

—Idenix Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: IDIX), a maker of infectious-disease treatments in Cambridge, MA, forged an alliance with GlaxoSmithKline potentially worth about $450 million. The deal, which will bring Idenix $34 million up front, as much as $416 million in potential milestone payments, plus royalties on product sales, gives GSK exclusive rights to the Massachusetts firm’s anti-HIV drug IDX899.

—Backchannelmedia, a Boston-based provider of a “clickable TV” system for embedding links in broadcast TV signals—inked a deal with its first paying customer, Atlanta’s Gray Television (NYSE: GTN). The broadcaster plans to roll out the Backchannelmedia system to its 36 local broadcast stations.

—Return investors reportedly put another $15 million into Lexington, MA-based GI Dynamics, which is developing an intestine-lining sleeve that mimics the effect of gastric bypass surgery for the treatment of obesity and Type 2 diabetes. With the new financing, from Advanced Technology Ventures, Cutlass Capital, Domain Associates, Johnson & Johnson Development, Polaris Venture Partners and Seedling Enterprises, the startup’s Series C round comes to a total of $45 million.

—Black Duck Software of Waltham, MA, raised $6.5 million in a second tranche of its Series D funding round. The deal included a $2 million equity investment from Intel Capital, Fidelity Ventures, Flagship Ventures, Focus Ventures, General Catalyst, SAP Ventures, and Red Hat, and $4.5 million in venture debt from Gold Hill Capital. Black Duck makes systems that help software makers track and properly license the open-source and third-party code going into their products.

—Cambridge, MA-based biotech Dyax (NASDAQ:DYAX) struck a licensing deal with France’s Fovea Pharmaceuticals focused on developing a version of Dyax’s lead drug, ecallantide, for eye diseases. An FDA panel has already recommended that the drug be approved as a treatment for the rare blood disease hereditary angioedema.

—FetchDog of Portland, ME—a canine-centric shopping and blogging website co-founded by actor Glenn Close and her husband David Shaw—closed a $4 million funding round. Participants in the deal included Portsmouth and Hanover, NH-based Borealis Capital Partners and Keene, NH-based Harbor Light Capital Partners.

—Bain Capital of Boston raised $475 million for a new venture fund, according to the Boston Globe.

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This week’s life sciences news was dominated by New England’s public companies—starting with three developments from Dyax.

—Last Wednesday, an FDA advisory committee voted by a margin of just 6-5 to recommend approval of ecallantide from Cambridge, MA-based Dyax (NASDAQ:DYAX). The drug, a treatment for the rare blood disease hereditary angioedema, is the lead drug candidate in Dyax’s pipeline.

–The next day, Dyax and its Cambridge neighbor Biogen Idec (NASDAQ:BIIB) announced that they’ve expanded a previous deal under which Dyax has discovered antibody drugs for Biogen. The new agreement, under which Biogen is entitled to 10 additional product licenses, includes a $5 million up-front payment to Dyax, research funding, up to $85 million in milestone fees, and royalties for each drug that Biogen brings to market through the partnership.

—And the day after that, Dyax announced it had inked an exclusive license deal with French drug firm Fovea Pharmaceuticals to develop a version of ecallantide for eye diseases.

—Worcester, MA-based RNAi-drug developer RXi Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:RXII) agreed to sell up to $25 million of its common stock to YA Global Investments over the next two years, in increments worth up to $500,000.

—Vertex Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: VRTX) of Cambridge, MA, announced a changing of the guard: founder, president, and CEO Josh Boger will retire on May 23, to be replaced by Vertex director Matthew Emmens, who will become president, CEO, and chairman of the board. Boger expressed his confidence in Emmens’ ability “to take the reins and guide Vertex as we bring our innovations to patients.”

—Cambridge, MA-based Idenix Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: IDIX) forged a deal granting pharma giant GlaxoSmithKline worldwide rights to its HIV drug IDX899. GSK will pay … Next Page »

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GI Dynamics has tapped previous investors to add $15 million to its third round of venture capital, giving the Lexington, MA-based firm more cash to develop its intestinal liner for the treatment of obesity and Type 2 diabetes. The company confirmed news of the financing, which was reported this morning by PE Hub. The new cash comes on top of $30 million that GI Dynamics raised in the first close of the Series C round in 2006.

The financing follows the medical device firm’s announcement last month that it received clearance to begin sales of its so-called EndoBarrier—a sleeve that lines a section of the small intestine to block calorie absorption—in Europe. CEO Stuart Randle, who declined to be interviewed this morning, told me last year that the company planned begin talks this year with the FDA about the design of a pivotal trial for the EndoBarrier. Also, late last year the company revealed that a small clinical trial with 37 patients showed that the device helped patients drop an average of 30 pounds.

GI Dynamics has raised a total of more than $60 million since it launched in 2003 with technology developed by former Boston Scientific (NYSE:BSX) engineer and GI Dynamics chief technology officer Andy Levine. For the latest financing, GI Dynamics attracted investments from return backers Advanced Technology Ventures, Cutlass Capital, Domain Associates, Johnson & Johnson Development, Polaris Venture Partners and Seedling Enterprises, according to PE Hub.

Coincidentally, I noted GI Dynamics in a story I posted this morning about the Greater Boston diabetes cluster.

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More than one of our readers has noted recently that the Boston area is home to a mighty cluster of companies dedicated to providing new treatments and devices for diabetics. So, after a bit of investigation, we’ve compiled a list of local firms that represent some of the most promising advances in diabetes care.

Of course, New England is home to one of the largest life sciences sectors in the country—and we’ve got significant numbers of companies focused on improving the lives of people with cancer, cardiovascular disease, and many other serious ailments. “In all facets of healthcare we have great local talent,” says Michael Greeley, managing general partner of Boston venture firm Flybridge Capital Partners. “It just happens that diabetes is a huge problem that these multiple firms, through therapeutic or devices or health IT, all address.”

A huge problem indeed: the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that there were 23.7 million Americans with diabetes in 2007 and growing. And the increase in patients has increased demand for new ways to treat, diagnose and monitor various forms of the disease—including Type 1 diabetes, in which the pancreas stops producing insulin, and Type 2 diabetes, the most common form of the disease, in which the body’s tissues fail to respond normally to insulin.

Below are nearly a dozen firms in Boston and environs dedicated to developing new drugs, medical devices, or diagnostics to combat diabetes. (As always, please leave a comment if you think we’ve missed a company or two that should be on the list.)

DEVICES AND DIAGNOSTICS

AgaMatrix
Salem, NH

AgaMatrix makes blood-glucose meters designed to provide ultra-sensitive readings, using digital signaling algorithms that measure variables such as altitude that can cause readings to be inaccurate. The company was co-founded by former MIT graduate student Sonny Vu, who now serves as chairman of the board.

GI Dynamics
Lexington, MA

GI Dynamics is developing a single device that could help people with Type 2 diabetes lower their blood sugar while helping them lose weight. The startup aims to gain regulatory clearance to sell its so-called EndoBarrier, which is a sleeve that lines a section of the small intestine, as a treatment for both Type 2 diabetes and obesity. Luke wrote a great post about some of the firm’s latest progress in clinical trials.

Insulet
Bedford, MA

Insulet (NASDAQ:PODD) to set out to solve another problem in diabetes care—convenient and discreet insulin delivery. The company’s OmniPod system … Next Page »

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