As has been the case in recent weeks, M&A news featured prominently in this week’s New England tech and life sciences deals.
—Harvard spinoff Tetraphase Pharmaceuticals of Watertown, MA, raised $10 million out of a planned $29.6 million equity financing round, the company indicated in an SEC filing. Tetraphase is developing new antibiotics to treat drug-resistant infections.
—Norwalk, CT-based Xerox (NYSE: [[ticker:XRX]]) said it will acquire Dallas, TX-based business process outsourcing firm Affiliated Computer Services (NYSE: [[ticker:ACS]]), a, for $6.4 billion in cash and stock.
—Software maker Egenera of Marlborough, MA, raised $3 million in new equity financing. Existing investors including Austin Ventures, Crosslink Capital, Kodiak Venture Partners, Pharos Capital Group, and Technology Crossover Ventures contributed to the round, according to Mass High Tech.
—Aspect Medical Systems (NASDAQ:[[ticker:ASPM]]) of Norwood, MA, agreed to be acquired by Irish healthcare products giant Covidien (NYSE:[[ticker:COV]]) for some $210 million in cash. Aspect’s brain monitoring equipment will become part of Covidien’s Oximetry and Monitoring product line.
—Acton, MA-based Blackwave, a provider of Internet-video servers, took in $3.5 million of a planned $9.1 million round of equity financing from undisclosed investors. Flybridge Capital Partners, Globespan Capital Partners, and Sigma Partners have participated in previous funding rounds for the company.
—Taiwan’s Prime View International (PVI) sweetened the deal in a proposed merger with E Ink, and shareholders of the Cambridge, MA-based firm complained that PVI’s initial offer of $215 million in cash was too low. Under the terms of the new deal, E Ink shareholder would get 120 million shares of preferred stock in the combined company, in addition to the $215 million.
—Cambridge-based Vertex Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:[[ticker:VRTX]]) inked a pair of debt deals related to European commercialization of its hepatitis C drug, telaprevir, that will bring in $155 million in cash. Ryan has the details on the deals and the drug’s prospects.
—Google Ventures led a Series D financing round for Lebanon, NH-based Adimab, which is developing a fast and powerful platform for discovering new antibody drugs. Other investors in the deal, the value of which was not disclosed, include return backers Polaris Venture Partners, SV Life Sciences, OrbiMed Advisors, and Borealis Ventures.
—Merrimack Pharmaceuticals of Cambridge, MA, inked a deal with French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi-Aventis giving Merrimack $60 million up front, plus as much as $470 million in potential milestone payments, in return for rights to co-develop and co-market MM-121, an experimental antibody drug for cancer.
