Last week had a little bit of everything for Boston-area deals watchers.
—Lexington, MA-based cancer drug developer Synta Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: [[ticker:SNTA]]) got a $25 million payday from partner GlaxoSmithKline. The payment was tied to reaching milestones in the development of a drug called elesclomol, which is in late-stage testing as a treatment for metastatic melanoma.
—Charles River Ventures of Waltham, MA, reportedly helped lead Mumbai, India-based Webaroo’s $11 million Series A funding round. Helion Venture Partners also participated in backing the maker of SMS-based software systems for group mobile messaging.
—Novell of Waltham, MA, announced its intentions to acquire McLean, VA-based Managed Objects, a maker of business service management software, for an undisclosed sum.
—Predictive Biosciences of Lexington, MA, raised $21.75 million in a Series B round led by New Enterprise Associates and joined by Kaiser Permanente Ventures, Highland Capital Partners, and Flybridge Capital Partners. Built around work done in the MIT lab of Robert Langer back in 1989 and 1990, Predictive is aiming to develop noninvasive diagnostic tools able to detect a host of diseases—starting with bladder cancer—by analyzing molecules in urine samples.
—Middlefield, CT-based metrology and optical-systems firm Zygo (NASDAQ: [[ticker:ZIGO]]) and Portland, OR-based photonic microengineering firm Electro Scientific Industries (NASDAQ: [[ticker:ESIO]]), announced they will merge in an all-stock transaction expected to close in the first quarter of 2009.
—T2 Biosystems of Cambridge, MA, raised $10.8 million in a Series B financing round from Flagship Ventures, Polaris Venture Partners, Flybridge Capital Partners, Partners Healthcare, and In-Q-Tel. With the help of top-drawer founders from MIT and Massachusetts General Hospital, among others, T2 is developing small, portable diagnostics devices that will allow a wide range of medical tests to be performed quickly and cheaply in ambulances, on the battlefield, in rural doctors’ offices, and so forth.
—Waltham, MA-based V.i. Labs, a maker of encryption and thread-detection applications, raised $4 million in venture funding from existing investors Core Capital and Ascent Ventures.
—GT Solar (NASDAQ: [[ticker:SOLR]]) of Merrimack, NH, forged an agreement with Taiwan-based Top Green Energy Technologies to provide solar cell manufacturing equipment worth $46.8 million.
—Marlborough, MA-based solar panel maker Evergreen Solar (NASDAQ: [[ticker:ESLR]]) inked two contracts—one with Mainstream Energy Corporation and its subsidiary AEE Solar and another with an unnamed Japanese trading company—to provide panels to produce more than 160 megawatts of power. The deals, financial terms of which were not disclosed, bring Evergreen’s total order backlog to more than 1 gigawatt.
