Last week saw two key local firms taking steps to clean up some years-old messes. Here’s more on that, and a roundup of the rest of the week’s news.
—Genzyme (NASDAQ: GENZ) announced it had reached an agreement-in-principle to pay $64 million to settle a four-year-old class action lawsuit brought by shareholders of a Genzyme tracking stock called Genzyme Biosurgery. The Boston Globe‘s Jeffrey Krasner explains the ins and outs.
—Natick, MA-based Boston Scientific (NYSE: BSX) moved to end its rocky relationship with Advanced Bionics, which it acquired in 2004, through an amended merger agreement. Under the new agreement, announced on Thursday, Boston Scientific will keep Advanced Bionics’ pain-management business, but will sell back its auditory and drug-pump programs. The New York Times has a nice summary of the complicated history between the two companies.
—IRobot (NASDAQ: IRBT), the Burlington, MA, maker of the Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner and various military robots, is moving its headquarters. The company inked a long-term lease for 157,000 square feet of space at 8 Crosby Drive in Bedford. Too bad it doesn’t make mover bots as well.
—Adnexus Therapeutics of Waltham, MA, said Thursday it had secured $15.5 million through a private placement of series C preferred stock led by HBM BioVentures (Cayman), a healthcare investment firm in the Cayman Islands that’s a subsidiary of HBM BioVentures AG of Switzerland. Previous investors, including Atlas Venture, Flagship Ventures, Polaris Venture Partners, and Venrock, also took part in the round.
—Cambridge biotech firm Curis announced that it had garnered $13 million in a private placement round. The investors were not named.
—Double-Take Software (NASDAQ: DBTK), a Southborough, MA-based maker of data-protection and -recovery software, announced on Friday the pricing of its planned public offering at $16 per share. The company expects to net only $1 million, however, as most of the of $2.79 million shares in the offering are being sold by stockholders.
—Biogen Idec (NASDAQ: BIIB) announced it had filled the slot left vacant when CFO Peter Kellog left for Merck. Paul Clancy, until now Biogen’s senior vice president of finance, assumes the CFO role today.
