{"id":529279,"date":"2010-04-16T00:01:03","date_gmt":"2010-04-16T04:01:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.xconomy.com\/?p=73782"},"modified":"2010-04-16T00:01:03","modified_gmt":"2010-04-16T04:01:03","slug":"genzyme-activist-joins-board-agios-clinches-deal-with-celgene-third-rock-seeks-400m-new-fund-more-boston-area-life-sciences-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/529279","title":{"rendered":"Genzyme Activist Joins Board, Agios Clinches Deal With Celgene, Third Rock Seeks $400M New Fund, & More Boston-Area Life Sciences News"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Roundup<\/a>, Life Sciences<\/a>, Drugs<\/a><\/div>\n

\t\tErin Kutz wrote:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Looks like last week’s flurry of information technology news is long gone. Headlines of partnerships, board appointments, and venture funding in biotech companies made it a busy life sciences news week for us.<\/p>\n

—MedVentive, a Waltham, MA-based provider of software for tracking medical data, raised a $10 million series C round<\/a>. MedVentive got part of the boost from included Clarian Health Ventures, the investing unit of one of its key customers.<\/p>\n

—Ryan tracked the growing fervor, on the part of both investors and biotech companies, in developing drugs for rare diseases<\/a>, as opposed to the traditional focus on big patient populations like those with heart disease, arthritis, or cancer. Alnara Pharmaceuticals, a Cambridge, MA, drug developer backed by Third Rock Ventures, is among the companies taking a cue from Genzyme (NASDAQ: GENZ<\/a>), whose three best-selling drugs each target diseases affecting fewer than 10,000 patients. Bigger pharma companies are also taken on developments in rare disease treatments as a way to offset potential losses from generic knockoffs of their big-selling mass-marketed drugs.<\/p>\n

—Cambridge-based Mersana Therapeutics, a maker of drugs designed to last longer in the bloodstream, announced its first big partnership deal<\/a>, with Israel’s Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, which could be worth as much as $334 million over time.<\/p>\n

—Alkermes (NASDAQ: ALKS<\/a>) filed an application with the FDA to start marketing a long-lasting version of its naltrexone drug (Vivitrol)<\/a> to help treat people addicted to opioid-based narcotics. The once-monthly injection from Waltham-based Alkermes is already FDA-approved for treating alcohol dependence.<\/p>\n

—Two area biotech companies announced they had brought on new CEOs<\/a>. Bedford, MA-based MicroCHIPS, a maker of wireless medical implants, hired Ajit Gill, who previously helped lead startup Nektar Therapeutics to an IPO. And Marlborough, MA-based Xcellerex, which is developing methods for more efficiently manufacturing biomolecules, tapped Thermo Fisher Scientific veteran Guy Broadbent to lead the company.<\/p>\n

—Third Rock Ventures plans to raise $400 million for a second fund<\/a>, according to a filing with the SEC. The Boston-based firm targeted life sciences companies with its maiden $378 million fund, which closed in 2007. Luke profiled Third Rock’s strategy around financing disruptive biotech ideas<\/a>, back in September 2008.<\/p>\n

—PerkinElmer (NYSE: PKI<\/a>), a Waltham-based maker of scientific instruments, will acquire Spokane, WA-based Signature Genomic Laboratories for about $90 million<\/a>, it revealed in a regulatory document.<\/p>\n

—Foundation Medicine pulled in the first tranche of a planned $25 million Series A round<\/a>, which will go toward …Next Page »<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

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Roundup, Life Sciences, Drugs Erin Kutz wrote: Looks like last week’s flurry of information technology news is long gone. Headlines of partnerships, board appointments, and venture funding in biotech companies made it a busy life sciences news week for us. —MedVentive, a Waltham, MA-based provider of software for tracking medical data, raised a $10 million […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1661,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-529279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1661"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=529279"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529279\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=529279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=529279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=529279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}