Recent posts and comments

• Cerulean Pharma Makes Progress in Attacking the Big C with Tiny Drugs

  Cerulean Pharma has made lots of progress since its early days in 2007 when I first visited the biotech startup, then called Tempo Pharmaceuticals, and company chairman Alan Crane broke out... Read more »

• Life Image Secures $5.2M in Second Financing Round to Push Medical Images in the Cloud

  Life Image has won further investor support after more hospitals have bought its new technology for exchanging medical images via the Internet cloud. The Newton, MA-based software startup has closed $5.2... Read more »

• Mascoma Gets New Cellulosic Ethanol Technology Through $51M Deal With SunOpta

  Mascoma has grabbed improved technology for breaking down the raw materials it uses for making biofuels. The Lebanon, NH-based firm has acquired the SunOpta BioProcess unit of the Canadian food and... Read more »

• Pfizer Gobbles FoldRx in Big Pharma’s Latest Rare Disease Play in Boston Area

  Big drug companies can’t seem to resist buying Boston-area biotech firms in the rare disease drug business. Pfizer, the world’s largest drugmaker, said this morning that it has agreed to purchase... Read more »

• Mercator Therapeutics Embarks on Journey to Develop Targeted Cancer Drugs

  Mercator Therapeutics is at the beginning of a journey to commercialize drugs derived from a new way of discovering treatments for cancer. Recently, the biotech startup closed a $2 million seed... Read more »

• PerkinElmer Sells IDS Unit for $500M

  PerkinElmer (NYSE:PKI), a Waltham, MA-based global provider of products for improving the health and safety of people and the environment, said today it plans to sell its illumination and... Read more »

• Aveo Pharma Stock Jumps 40 Percent in A Week, CEO Notes Progress in Pivotal Kidney Cancer Trial

  Aveo Pharmaceuticals has grabbed the attention of investors, who have driven its stock price up by 40 percent over the past week to $8.67 per share at yesterday’s close. The Cambridge,... Read more »

• Genzyme Shoots Down Sanofi-Aventis’s Buyout Offer

  Genzyme’s board of directors has unanimously rejected a new $18.5 billion buyout bid that came in from French drug giant Sanofi-Aventis over the weekend, saying that the offer doesn’t recognize the... Read more »

• HealthEdge, Rising from the Ashes of DeNovis, Reaps Benefits from Healthcare Reform

  People who paid close attention to the healthcare reform debate know that it was really about bringing sweeping changes to health insurance in the United States. It includes all kinds of... Read more »

• Taligen Collects $10M For Focus on Rare Diseases

  Taligen Therapeutics wants to apply its technology platform to treat rare diseases in which the immune system goes haywire and attacks healthy cells. The Cambridge, MA-based biotech startup says it has... Read more »

• PatientsLikeMe Lands $8M

  PatientsLikeMe, a Cambridge, MA-based firm that provides social networking sites for people with specific illnesses, has raised $8 million of a planned $30 million round of equity financing, according to... Read more »

• Agios, Nourished with $130M Celgene Deal, Expanding Staff and Labs to Starve Cancer

  [Editor's note, Aug. 23, 2010: Updated and corrected, see below.] David Schenkein, the CEO of the biotech startup Agios Pharmaceuticals, walked into the firm’s Cambridge, MA, headquarters last week with building... Read more »

• Achillion Pharma Finds $50.1M

  Achillion Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:ACHN), a New Haven, CT-based developer of infectious disease drugs, said today it expects to raise $50.1 million in a private sale of the firm’s common stock... Read more »

• Biogen Idec Strikes Potential $345M Deal with Knopp to Develop ALS Drug

  Biogen Idec now has a shot at treating a neurodegenerative disease that has befuddled researchers for decades. The Weston, MA-based biotech powerhouse (NASDAQ:BIIB) says today it has landed a... Read more »

• NewRiver Selling for $77M

  NewRiver, an Andover, MA-based provider of investor disclosure software, has inked a deal with Broadridge Financial Solutions (NYSE:BR) to be acquired for $77 million, the companies reported yesterday. Lake... Read more »

• Susan Windham-Bannister on the State of the State’s $1B Life Sciences Initiative, Part II

  Politics play a significant role in Massachusetts’s 10-year plan to invest $1 billion into its life sciences sector. Gov. Deval Patrick championed the effort, which aims to grow the life sciences... Read more »

• Avantra Bio Finds $7M

  Avantra Biosciences, a Woburn, MA-based developer of protein biomarker technology to detect a range of diseases, has raised $7 million in a Series A funding round, according to an SEC... Read more »

• $5M for Shape Up The Nation

  Shape Up The Nation, a Providence-based provider of Web software and services for employer wellness programs, said yesterday it has raised $5 million in a Series A funding round. The investors... Read more »

• Susan Windham-Bannister on the State of the State’s $1B Life Sciences Initiative, Part I

  It’s been more than two years since Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick signed the bill for the state’s plan to invest $1 billion in its life sciences sector over a 10-year period.... Read more »

• Biocept Banks $2.3M

  Biocept, a San Diego-based developer of cancer diagnostics, has raised $2.3 million of a planned $7.1 million round of  equity financing, according to an SEC filing. Stephen Coutts, the... Read more »