It seemed like half of the Boston area’s life sciences sector was out at JPMorgan’s Annual Healthcare Conference in San Francisco last week, but somehow the deals—in that industry and the rest of tech—kept getting done back here in town.
—Waltham, MA-based Polaris Venture Partners led a $47 million Series B financing for Montreal-based jewelry retailer Ice.com. Bob recounts Ice’s long journey from Montreal to Bill Gross’s Idealab Internet incubator to Pasadena and back to Montreal.
—Verenium (NASDAQ: [[ticker:VRNM]]), a developer of biofuels and specialty enzymes in Cambridge, MA, inked an agreement with St. Louis’s Bunge Oils aimed at improving the production of edible oils.
—Following on a strong IPO in September, Watertown, MA-based Athenahealth (NASDAQ: [[ticker:ATHN]]), filed for a secondary public offering of approximately 3.11 million common shares. The company provides online billing and other business services for medical practices.
—Cambridge, MA-based Genzyme (NASDAQ: [[ticker:GENZ]]) and Carlsbad, CA’s Isis Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: [[ticker:ISIS]]) forged a strategic alliance potentially worth close to $2 billion. The deal centers on a lipid-lowering treatment from Isis that employs an older RNA-based technique called antisense.
—Primera Biosystems of Mansfield, MA, a molecular diagnostics firm, closed a Series B financing round worth $21 million led by Abingworth Management.
—Burlington, MA-based Aushon Biosystems raised $4 million of a $7 million Series B round from North Bridge Venture Partners, according to peHUB. The firm provides microarray products and services for life sciences research and the diagnostics market.
—Boston’s Ze-Gen, a waste gasification startup, secured $2.5 million in venture debt from Palo Alto, CA-based Pinnacle Ventures.
