Therapeutics laid off 43 percent of its remaining workforce and is focusing its remaining business on its best drug candidates. The biotech says it is seeking a strategic partner willing to collaborate or acquire certain assets.
—Luke revisited Life Technologies, which was formed in the November merger of Invitrogen and Applied Biosystems, to see how the consolidation is really going. Mark Stevenson, who is the president and chief operating officer, told Luke that Life intends to grow its business and keep its headquarters in Carlsbad, CA.
—Meanwhile, Carlsbad, CA-based Regulus Therapeutics, a joint venture founded 18 months ago by Carlsbad’s Isis Pharmaceuticals and Cambridge, MA-based Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, revealed plans to reorganize as an independent corporation. Luke says the CEOs of both Isis and Alylam supported the move during the recent JP Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco.
—Google’s green energy czar Bill Weihl told a San Diego symposium on “Greening the Internet” how the Mountain View, CA-based Internet company has cut its energy use roughly in half.
—San Diego’s Overland Storage (NASDAQ: [[ticker:OVRL]]) has been straining to pull out of a spiral since 2005 when the data storage equipment maker lost its biggest customer, Hewlett-Packard. Now CEO Vern LoForti has a new vision for Overland as an “end-to-end provider” of data storage solutions so customers can backup up their critical computerized business records or for archiving their video surveillance data.
—San Diego’s The Active Network, which raised $80 million in venture funding in August, revealed plans to buy online campground reservation provider ReserveAmerica from New York-based IAC. Financial terms were not disclosed in the transaction, which will give Barry Diller’s IAC a 9 percent stake in the privately held Active Network.
