Category: Finance
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University Biotech Spinoff Secures $38M Venture Funding
Naurex Inc., a spin-off company from Northwestern University creating neurological and psychiatric drugs, closed a $38 million series B venture round, the second financing cycle after start-up. Financing for the Evanston, Illinois biotechnology company was led by new investor Baxter Ventures, and joined by new investor Savitr Capital, as well as 10 current backers including…
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Wake Forest Health Expands Commercialization Program
Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, North Carolina started a new division to encourage development of new products and services from its research. Wake Forest Innovations, as the division is called, is expected to generate new revenue streams for the medical center by growing and managing new business partnerships. Wake Forest Innovations has a…
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New Life Sciences Venture Fund to Invest in Europe, U.S.
Sofinnova Partners, a venture capital company in Paris, closed its seventh fund focusing on investments in life sciences start-up companies, valued at €240 million ($312 million). Sofinnova Partners is affiliated with Sofinnova Ventures, a life sciences venture capital company in Menlo Park, California. The company says contributors to the Sofinnova Capital VII fund are major…
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Amgen Purchases Diagnostics Developer deCODE Genetics
Amgen, a biotechnology company in Thousand Oaks, California, acquired deCODE Genetics, a developer of genetic disease risk assessment tests in Reykjavik, Iceland in an all-cash transaction valued at $415 million. Amgen says the transaction does not require regulatory approval and is expected to close before the end of 2012. deCODE Genetics offers genetic scans for…
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University Developing Smart Skin, Fabrics for Robots
Engineers at University of Texas in Arlington are developing smart skin and fabrics that can help robotic devices, such as prosthetics, learn about their environments and react accordingly. The four-year, $1.35 million project is funded by National Science Foundation under the National Robotics Initiative. The research is led by engineering professor Dan Popa (pictured left),…
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Augmented Reality Applications Enhanced for Mobile Devices
Computer scientists at University of California in Santa Barbara are developing augmented reality applications for mobile devices that offer more stable, realistic, and current images than available today. The lab of computer science professors Matthew Turk and Tobias Höllerer (pictured right) recently received a $300,000 grant from the U.S. Office of Naval Research to create…
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Genomics Biotech Raises $40 Million in Venture Funds
Moderna Therapeutics, a biotechnology start-up in Cambridge, Massachusetts developing therapies harnessing messenger RNA, secured some $40 million in venture funding. The financing for this round was led by Flagship Ventures that incubated Moderna Therapeutics, and includes other unamed private investors. The two-year-old company, founded and based on research by scientists at Harvard University and MIT,…
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Genetics Company Lands NIH Allergies, Asthma Research Grant
The genetic testing company 23andMe in Mountain View, California received funding from National Institutes of Health for research into the genetics of allergies and asthma. The company also received two other NIH grants, to assess accuracy of new sequencing technologies in clinical applications and develop better genetic research tools based on information in the 23andMe…
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MIT Entrepreneurial Center Awards Technology Grants
A division of Massachusetts Institute of Technology that promotes entrepreneurship awarded new grants to eight research teams working on early-stage technologies. The Deshpande Center for Technological Innovation at MIT says the grants total $706,000 and cover projects ranging from semiconductor manufacturing to retinal disease detection. The grants support early-stage research and development of new solutions,…
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U.K. Medical Tech Company Acquires Wound Care Developer
Smith & Nephew, a medical technology company in London, is purchasing Healthpoint Biotherapeutics, a developer of wound treatments in Fort Worth, Texas. In the transaction, Smith & Nephew will acquire all Healthpoint assets for $782 million in cash, with the deal expected to close next month. Olivier Bohuon, Smith & Nephew’s CEO, says the acquisition…