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Optimer Sharpens Up Commercial Game Plan, After “C.Diff” Drug Success

Of all the people I met last month on a whirlwind of meetings with San Diego biotech companies, none had more bounce in their step than the folks at Optimer Pharmaceuticals. This company passed a huge test last month that suggests it has created the first new drug in decades for a bacterial invader called [...] Click here to play

Fri, 05 Dec 2008 08:03:40 +0000

EMC Secures Microsoft Alliance, Polaris Backs Infinite Power Solutions, ExtendMedia Extends its Balance Sheet by $10M, & More Boston-Area Deals News

Nope, it’s not Monday again already. We just moved the Boston deals roundup from Monday to Friday to make room for the brand-new San Diego deals roundup. So Boston readers are getting a bonus roundup this week. It’s a good thing, too–there’s much to discuss: —Oak Investment Partners of Westport, CT and Palo Alto, CA reportedly [...] Click here to play

Fri, 05 Dec 2008 05:01:12 +0000

Dispatch from India’s Innovation Front Lines

Editor’s note: Xconomist Vinit Nijhawan is in India visiting venture capitalists and startups with an eye to bridging Boston and Indian startup ecosystems. This is the first in a series of dispatches. New Delhi, Thursday, December 4—I arrived in Delhi near midnight off a packed flight and to a crowded international airport, no sign of any [...] Click here to play

Fri, 05 Dec 2008 05:01:03 +0000

RealNetworks Lays Off 130, 39 in Seattle

Seattle-based RealNetworks has confirmed it is cutting 130 jobs, or 7.5 percent of its worldwide staff. The digital-media company says 39 of the positions are in Seattle. The layoffs will be effective at the end of the year. Displaced workers will receive cash severance packages and six months of healthcare coverage. Click here to play

Fri, 05 Dec 2008 01:54:02 +0000

PATH Invests $3M in Flu Vaccine Candidate

Seattle-based PATH, a nonprofit organization devoted to improving global health, said today it is investing $3 million in a vaccine candidate against pandemic flu. The vaccine is being developed by Lentigen, a Gaithersburg, MD-based biotech company. If successful, the vaccine will mimic the potentially deadly H5N1 strains of flu virus, known as “bird flu.” The [...] Click here to play

Thu, 04 Dec 2008 23:34:02 +0000

NitroMed Gets Buyout Offer

Lexington, MA-based drug maker NitroMed (NASDAQ:NTMD) says it has received an unsolicited bid from investment group Deerfield Management—which already owns about 12 percent of NitroMed’s stock—to acquire NitroMed for 50 cents per share in cash, a 40-percent premium on its closing price today of 30 cents per share. The company says it’s evaluating the offer. [...] Click here to play

Thu, 04 Dec 2008 23:13:30 +0000

Helicos Cuts 30 Percent of Workforce

Helicos Biosciences, the Cambridge, MA-based maker of genetic analysis tools, said today in a regulatory filing it is cutting 30 percent of its workforce, about 30 jobs, to conserve cash. The cuts will come between now and the end of the year, and cause the company to take a $450,000 charge for termination benefits. Earlier [...] Click here to play

Thu, 04 Dec 2008 22:18:42 +0000

EMC and Microsoft Expand Partnership

EMC (NYSE: EMC), the Hopkinton, MA-based IT storage company, announced a new partnership between Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) and EMC security division RSA to improve data security for the companies’ customers across networks and data centers. The partnership will combine RSA’s and Redmond, WA-based Microsoft’s resources and technologies to, among other things, integrate RSA data-protection software [...] Click here to play

Thu, 04 Dec 2008 22:03:08 +0000

GlassHouse Raises $9.8M in Series F Round

GlassHouse Technologies, a Framingham, MA-based provider of data center management and Internet-based data backup services, has raised $9.8 million in a Series F financing round led by Cisco Systems, PE Hub reports. GlassHouse, which we included in our list of tech companies with “aging” bids for initial public offerings, has been in registration for a [...] Click here to play

Thu, 04 Dec 2008 21:40:40 +0000

DivX’s CTO Resigns

San Diego’s DivX (NASDAQ: DIVX) says its chief technology officer Markus Moenig has resigned to “return overseas and explore new entrepreneurial opportunities.” The company said Moenig’s primary focus, which was integrating H. 264 digital video technology, has been realized in its soon-to-be released DivX 7 product. The vice president of engineering, Jim Reesman, will lead [...] Click here to play

Thu, 04 Dec 2008 19:30:22 +0000

Calling All Bands and Music Fans—Xconomy’s Battle of the Tech Bands 2 Is Approaching

January can be a cold, dark, cruel month around Boston. But Xconomy plans to liven it up—at least for one very loud evening—with our second annual Battle of the Tech Bands, planned for January 22 at the Middle East Restaurant and Nightclub here in Cambridge, MA. If you’re a musician and at least one member [...] Click here to play

Thu, 04 Dec 2008 18:57:14 +0000

Boston Loses Mobile Internet World Conference to San Francisco

The Mobile Internet World trade show, produced in Boston in 2007 and 2008 by the Trendsmedia events division of Boston-based market research firm Yankee Group, will be transplanted to the San Francisco Bay Area in 2009 and revamped as a “more intimate” conference focused on networking and education, according to a Trendsmedia announcement. The announcement, e-mailed [...] Click here to play

Thu, 04 Dec 2008 18:07:13 +0000

Public Data Goes on Amazon’s Cloud

Seattle-based Amazon Web Services announced today it is providing free access to centralized data sets in the Internet cloud. The Amazon subsidiary will host large data sets from genomics, bioinformatics, economics, U.S. Census information, and other areas, which researchers and developers can access from the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud software platform. The effort is intended [...] Click here to play

Thu, 04 Dec 2008 18:03:35 +0000

Catalyst Biosciences Raises $40M from Boston-Area Backers and Other Firms

Cambridge, MA-based venture firm HealthCare Ventures and several other backers have invested $40.4 million in a Series C round of financing for Catalyst Biosciences, a South San Francisco developer of protein-based drugs for diseases such as hemophilia and cancer, according to a company statement. Morgenthaler Ventures, a Menlo Park, CA-based firm which says it has [...] Click here to play

Thu, 04 Dec 2008 15:36:31 +0000

BeatThat Founder: Holiday Discounts Unimpressive So Far

Both traffic to online retailers and actual sales appear to have been up moderately on Cyber Monday, the Internet equivalent of last week’s Black Friday bricks-and-mortar shopping binge. But it wasn’t because of the big discounts allegedly being offered by e-retailers as a way to get recession-stung consumers to open their wallets, according to an [...] Click here to play

Thu, 04 Dec 2008 15:00:00 +0000

Korean Biotech Opens Mass. Office

OCT USA, a U.S. unit of Korean biotech firm Osteogenic Core Technologies, plans to open an office in Cambridge, MA, today, the Boston Globe reports. The Globe says that OCT—which is developing treatments for osteoporosis and arthritis—plans to hire 30 scientists in Cambridge and pump $8 million to $10 million into its new operation at [...] Click here to play

Thu, 04 Dec 2008 13:51:40 +0000

Grounded in Reality, Maxwell Technology’s CEO Dispels Static Around Ultracapacitors

Is it just me, or have ultracapacitors somehow become the latest hot and mysterious alternative energy technology? Just a few weeks ago, my Xconomy colleague Greg Huang reported that Seattle startup EnerG2 landed $8.5 million in venture funding to develop a new class of ultracapitors that use nanocomposite materials to store energy. Before that, Light Electric [...] Click here to play

Thu, 04 Dec 2008 13:30:33 +0000

Boston Biotechs Seek Scarce Funds Amid Market Famine at Annual Pitch Event

Many biotech firms in the Boston area and elsewhere are starved for capital, and initial public offerings appear to be off the table due to the economic recession. These harsh realities are likely to flavor the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council’s (MBC) annual MassBio Investors Forum next week, when 17 biotech outfits (including a new regenerative medicine [...] Click here to play

Thu, 04 Dec 2008 13:00:38 +0000

Urbanspoon Unveils Restaurant Sites in All U.S. Cities; Co-Founder Ethan Lowry Talks Strategy

I didn’t think it was possible for a popular website like Urbanspoon to fly below the radar. But it has—at least for the past week. The two-year old Seattle startup, which provides local restaurant reviews and has more than a million users of its iPhone application every month, quietly unveiled new sites in every city [...] Click here to play

Thu, 04 Dec 2008 12:30:39 +0000

Re-energizing Energy Innovation: Experts Spar (Lightly) at Xconomy Forum

The role of technology entrepreneurs in rebuilding the U.S. energy economy was the main theme at Xconomy’s latest forum Tuesday night. Topping the agenda was an all-star panel of local entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and academic analysts, who shared their thoughts with a sold-out crowd of some 125 attendees at the British Consulate General in Cambridge, [...] Click here to play

Thu, 04 Dec 2008 11:00:48 +0000

Bruce Carter Exits Stage Left, Targeted Genetics Cuts Payroll, OncoGenex Cancer Drug Prolongs Lives, & More Seattle-Area Life Sciences News

The big news of the past couple weeks came before Thanksgiving, when one of Seattle’s biotech pioneers, Bruce Carter, decided to exit stage left. Here is that and other highlights of the past two weeks: —ZymoGenetics’ charismatic CEO Bruce Carter, 65, has decided to retire at year’s end, and promote Doug Williams to take his place. [...]

Thu, 04 Dec 2008 10:30:26 +0000

Traditional Venture Model is “Broken” for Biotech, Companies Need to Adapt, Says VC Alan Frazier

Alan Frazier controls one of the world’s biggest life sciences venture capital funds, so it would only be natural that he’d like to hide under a rock these days. But he was still willing to sit down with me at his 32nd floor office in downtown Seattle this week for a wide-ranging talk about the [...]

Thu, 04 Dec 2008 09:30:12 +0000

Innovation Will Set America Back on Track

Most Americans are depressed about the economy. But if we pull back and try to rise above the clouds, there are real reasons for hope. The combination of a “Yes We Can” administration headed to the White House, along with our country’s established leadership in innovation, has us standing at the crest of a trail that [...]

Thu, 04 Dec 2008 07:01:44 +0000

Xconomy’s Top 9 List of How to Deal With the Downturn Now Up to 12 As More Good Advice Pours In

A few weeks ago we ran a story called How to Handle the Downturn: Xconomy’s Top 9 List of Top 10 Lists. We’d been combing the Web looking for an even ten Top 10 advice lists—but came up one short. Since that time, the advice has continued to flow. One list of particular note, from Glenn [...]

Thu, 04 Dec 2008 05:01:56 +0000

Verdiem’s New CEO, Jeremy Jaech, Sees Big Opportunity in IT Energy Savings

Updated Dec. 3 with comments from Ed Lazowska (see below): Seattle-based Verdiem, a cleantech-meets-computing firm, announced its new chief executive today. He is Jeremy Jaech, the co-founder of software powerhouses Aldus and Visio, a University of Washington alum, and a certified tech-entrepreneur giant of the Northwest. I’ve had my eye on Verdiem as an [...]

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 23:40:57 +0000

Glaxo Promotes Sirtris’ Christoph Westphal to Drug Discovery Leadership Role

Christoph Westphal is not only sticking around at Cambridge, MA-based Sirtris after the biotech company was acquired by drug giant GlaxoSmithKline, he’s just accepted a promotion. Westphal, one of the region’s top life sciences entrepreneurs, agreed to take on a new responsibility as senior vice president of Glaxo’s Center of Excellence for External Drug Discovery, [...]

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 21:32:20 +0000

Amazon Unveils iPhone Photo App

Seattle-based Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) today announced a new application for Apple’s iPhone and iPod touch. The most interesting feature lets you take a picture of a product, which Amazon then tries to match with similar products available for purchase online. The broader application lets users browse for products from Amazon and other retailers like Target [...]

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 19:27:52 +0000

Japan’s KDDI Deploying Next-Generation LTE Wireless, a Positive For Qualcomm

Japan’s second-largest cellular operator, KDDI, is adopting the next-generation, Long-Term Evolution, or LTE, wireless standard founded on San Diego-based Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM) technology. KDDI is deploying LTE equpment from Hitachi and Nortel that will provide an overlay to its existing CDMA mobile network.

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 18:13:46 +0000

Videré Acquired by Providea

Quincy, MA-based Videré Conferencing, which outfits companies with high-definition videoconferencing facilities, announced today that it has been acquired by a West Coast competitor, Camarillo, CA-based Providea Conferencing. The terms of the deal were not disclosed. Back in July, Providea received a venture infusion from Boston-based Westview Capital Partners.

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 17:23:34 +0000

PerkinElmer Buys Gas Analyzer Firm

PerkinElmer (NYSE:PKI), a Waltham, MA-based provider of products and services in the health-care, analytical sciences and photonics industries, announced it has acquired gas analyzer supplier Arnel, headquartered in Parlin, NJ. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed. The buyout of Arnel, which has served as a supplier to PerkinElmer for 18 years, is expected to enhance [...]

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 17:08:47 +0000

Spiration Promotes Finance Chief Greg Sessler to COO

Spiration, the Redmond, WA-based medical device company, said today it has promoted Greg Sessler from chief financial officer to chief operating officer. Sessler takes on the new responsibility two months after Spiration won FDA clearance to sell its first product—a tiny valve that doctors insert to block off air to damaged parts of the lung. [...]

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 16:56:41 +0000

FDA Gives Fast-Track Status to Anadys’ Hepatitis C Drug Candidate

Shares of San Diego’s Anadys Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: ANDS) gave up some of the boost they got Tuesday after the company announced the Food and Drug Administration put the biotech’s drug candidate for hepatitis C on fast-track review. Anadys shares fell in early trading today, after gaining almost 20 percent Tuesday. Shares have traded between $1.36 [...]

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 16:20:49 +0000

Harvard Endowment Down $8B, Further Losses Expected

Harvard University’s endowment, the largest in higher education and historically a major investor in venture capital funds, has dropped a scary 22 percent, or $8 billion, from its $36.9 billion value on June 30, the Harvard Crimson student newspaper reports. The impact of the big decline is already being felt. The Crimson reports that university departments [...]

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 15:38:15 +0000

Running Near Empty, Overland Storage May Be a Sign of The Times

I thought it was unusual when San Diego’s Overland Storage said Friday it had closed on a $9 million receivable financing agreement. All it means is that a finance company has agreed to lend Overland immediate cash for its customers’ IOUs—like one of those “payday loan” outfits. So I arranged to talk with Vern LoForti, who [...]

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 15:23:41 +0000

Prostate Cancer Drug from OncoGenex, Isis Prolongs Lives; OncoGenex Shares Soar

Some eye-opening news for prostate cancer patients crossed the wire this morning, sending shares of OncoGenex Pharmaceuticals rocketing up 80 percent. An experimental drug from OncoGenex and Isis Pharmaceuticals, used in combination with standard treatments, helped men with prostate cancer live a median time of 10.6 months longer than if they took the usual chemo [...]

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 15:15:34 +0000

Artes Files for Bankruptcy After Drop in Facial Filler Sales

Artes Medical, a maker of an injectable filler to smooth facial wrinkles, has filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, citing reduced consumer spending on its cosmetic treatment due to the poor economy. The San Diego-based medical technology firm said in an earlier SEC filing on November 21 that a liquidation of its assets and bankruptcy were in [...]

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 15:11:19 +0000

Polaris Co-Leads Infinite Power Solutions Series B Round

Waltham, MA-based Polaris Venture Partners and D.E. Shaw Ventures of New York are the lead investors in a $13 million Series B investment round for Infinite Power Solutions of Littleton, CO, the startup announced today. Existing investors Core Capital Partners, Applied Ventures, and In-Q-Tel also joined the round, which brings the company’s total venture pot [...]

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 14:41:07 +0000

An Energetic Thank You to Our Energy Innovation Forum Speakers and Sponsors

The British consulate on Memorial Drive was hopping last night as roughly 125 people gathered for our Energy Innovation forum, which featured a great panel led by Xconomist Bill Aulet of the MIT Entrepreneurship Center—and an incredible chat between Paul “Charlie Rose” Maeder of Highland Capital Partners and energy-efficiency guru Amory Lovins, co-founder and chairman [...]

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 14:00:50 +0000

How To Spot a Breakthrough: Tips from Early Amazon Investor Nick Hanauer

Last night, I attended an inspiring talk by Nick Hanauer of Seattle-based Second Avenue Partners. The venue was Seattle University, and the topic was “breakthrough thinking and ideas”—what they are, how to find them, and which companies have developed (and will develop) them. The event was organized by the Northwest Entrepreneur Network. Hanauer knows a thing [...]

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 13:54:19 +0000

The Pros (and Not Many Cons) of Merck’s HPV Vaccine, According to UW’s Laura Koutsky

Everyone has human papillomavirus (HPV) crawling all over our skin. This usually doesn’t cause us any harm, but in about 11,000 cases a year in the U.S., sexual activity leads to an infection that causes cervical cancer, which kills about 3,800 women a year. This basic fact is at the root of a revolution in the [...]

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 13:53:44 +0000

Speech Recognition on the iPhone, Via Vlingo

Back in June, Cambridge, MA speech-recognition startup Vlingo rolled out software that lets Blackberry owners run their devices using voice commands instead of their thumbs—opening applications, dictating e-mails, entering terms into Web search engines, and the like. CEO Dave Grannan said at the time that Vlingo engineers were working on similar software for other devices, [...]

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 11:30:00 +0000

Meritage Pharma Aims to Develop Drug to Reduce Swelling in the Food Pipe

Intense allergic reactions to things like bee stings or peanuts can be life-threatening because some people can suffocate from massive inflammation in the windpipe. But it’s a little-known fact that the same kind of allergic reaction can also cause swelling and narrowing in the food pipe (aka the esophagus). Sometimes it’s so severe that food [...]

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 06:05:21 +0000

The Obama Presidency: Some Needed Changes Likely Coming in the Life Sciences

For months and months, we heard the mantra of “Obama: the change we need; change we can believe in.” The election is finally over. The people have spoken. Now that Senator Barack Obama is president-elect, it is my hope that certain “changes” supported by the president-elect will help jump-start two areas of focus in the [...]

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 05:05:32 +0000

Alkermes Regains Vivitrol Rights, Biogen Idec Heads for the Burbs, A Peek at Partners Innovation Fund’s Portfolio, & More Boston-Area Life Sciences News

Several of the Boston area’s public life sciences companies were making news this week. But first… —Ryan delved into the strategy and portfolio of Partners Innovation Fund, which was launched last year by Massachusetts General and Brigham and Women’s hospitals to invest exclusively in startups with science from the two Harvard-affiliated hospitals. Among the startups [...]

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 05:01:34 +0000

Entellium Files for Bankruptcy

Seattle-based Entellium said it has filed for bankruptcy protection today, as it prepares to sell off its assets. In October, the software company’s top two executives, Paul Johnston and Parrish Jones, resigned and were charged with fraud. The filing says Entellium has $37.7 million in assets and $12.7 million in liabilities. Its creditors are listed [...]

Tue, 02 Dec 2008 23:51:03 +0000

38 Studios Goes National with Student Game Challenge

38 Studios, the Maynard, MA-based game development house founded by Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling, announced today that it’s repeating the “Massachusetts Game Challenge” it launched last year. But the company is extending eligibility beyond New England this time to all U.S. and Canadian college and university students. The contest is designed to cultivate and highlight [...]

Tue, 02 Dec 2008 20:20:47 +0000

Appeals Court Slams Qualcomm, Clarifies Law on Disclosing Patents to Standards Groups

A federal appellate court agreed that San Diego’s Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM) should be punished for hiding its work from industry groups developing a new video technology standard. But the three-judge panel ruled that a San Diego trial judge went a step too far by invalidating Qualcomm’s patents on the video compression technology it had concealed. Qualcomm’s [...]

Tue, 02 Dec 2008 20:14:08 +0000

Amazon Completes AbeBooks Acquisition

Seattle-based Amazon announced it has completed its acquisition of Victoria, BC-based AbeBooks, an online marketplace for used, rare, and out-of-print books. The deal was originally announced on August 1. With the purchase, Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) also owns 40 percent of LibraryThing, a literary social site based in Cambridge, MA, which competes with Seattle-based Shelfari, another [...]

Tue, 02 Dec 2008 19:31:03 +0000

Vestas Wind Picks Mass. R&D Site

Vestas Wind Systems, a Danish wind turbine maker, reports that it plans to open an R&D center at an undisclosed location in the western suburbs of Boston, where it will develop generators, converters, and control technologies for future wind turbines. The company says that the core staff of the R&D hub will come from ePower, [...]

Tue, 02 Dec 2008 18:04:32 +0000

Creator of Seattle 2.0, Marcelo Calbucci, Looks to Build the Ultimate Resource Site for Startups

Are you a new tech entrepreneur in the Seattle area? Or interested in the workings of startups from a Northwest perspective? If so, you should check out Marcelo Calbucci’s “ultimate guide,” which he posted on his Seattle 2.0 blog yesterday. In it, he discusses the practicalities of starting a business, like office space, legal issues, [...]

Tue, 02 Dec 2008 17:25:36 +0000

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