Just in time for the long weekend, a bumper crop of news briefs. Enjoy, but don’t leave the laptop too close to the barbeque.
—Framingham firm GlassHouse, which competes with the likes of EMC and IBM Global Services in the data storage and consulting services sector, is supplementing the $64 million it has already raised with a $16-million convertible note loan. Previous backers included GrandBanks Capital, Jafco, Kodiak Venture Partners, Montagu Newhall Associates, Paladin Capital Management, and Shiprock Capital. The new financing comes from LRG Capital Group, Velocity Capital Group, and Leader Ventures. PEHub has the writeup.
—Boston Scientific’s (NYSE: BSX) lawyers might have a few fewer hours to bill after this week, in which the firm settled investigations in 35 states and the District of Columbia relating to faulty implantable defibrillators. Under the terms of the settlement, three of the Natick, MA-based firm’s subsidiaries—Guidant Corporation, Cardiac Pacemakers, and Guidant Sales Corporation—will pay a total of $16.75 million and extend the warranty program for the affected devices, but will admit no liability. In a separate case, a U.S. District Court judge dismissed some but not all of the claims in a $5.5 billion lawsuit being brought by Johnson & Johnson against Boston Scientific, Guidant, and Abbott Laboratories over Guidant’s sale last year to Boston Scientific.
—Cambridge-based Akamai (NASDAQ: AKAM), creator of one of the world’s largest content distribution networks for the Web, announced that new technology will enable users to exchange files on the order or 5 to 50 gigabytes in size. Files that big take so long to download over traditional network connections that they could traditionally only be transported via “Sneaker Net”—that is, physically carrying a DVD-ROM or hard drive between computers. The company’s Large File Download Optimization technology is part of an overall upgrade intended to tune Akamai’s network for the delivery of high-definition TV signals over the Internet.
—Inverness Medical Innovations (AMEX: IMA), a Waltham, MA-based diagnostics firm, continued a recent streak of acquisitiveness with the $36 million purchase of Newton-based cancer-detection firm Matritech (AMEX: MZT). Inverness also cut more than 100 jobs at California-based Biosite, for which it paid $1.6 billion in June.
—Chelmsford, MA-based RFID-infrastructure firm Reva Systems has raised $10.5 million in additional Series B financing, PEHub reports.
—Seems like ever since I relocated from my previous job on Waltham’s Winter Street, in part to be closer to the tech scene here, there’s been a parade of firms from this neighborhood headed in the opposite direction. The latest is the biopharmaceutical firm ImmunoGen (NASDAQ: IMGN). I’ll try not to take it personally.
