Acquisitions, partnership agreements, and early round financing for some stealthy operations made it a busy deals news week for us.
—Third Rock Ventures, a Boston firm focused on investments in life sciences companies, plans to raise $400 million for its second fund, according to an SEC filing. The firm closed its first fund, with $378 million, in 2007.
—Waltham, MA-based scientific instrument maker PerkinElmer revealed it agreed to acquire Spokane, WA-based Signature Genomic Laboratories for about $90 million in cash.
—Foundation Medicine, a company that’s focused on fighting cancer by testing for genetic traits in a tumor and matching them with treatments, reported that it pulled in part of a $25 million Series A funding round. The startup is incubated out of Boston’s Third Rock Ventures, which also led the financing. In February, Ryan was the first to report that former CombinatoRx (NASDAQ: [[ticker:CRXX]]) CEO Alexis Borisy was leading Foundation.
—Catabasis Pharmaceuticals, a Cambridge-based startup run by Sirtris Pharmaceuticals veterans, revealed in a regulatory filing that it pulled in $7.7 million of a planned $39.7 million financing. The stealthy operation is developing treatments for inflammatory and metabolic diseases by leveraging the protective effects of omega-3 fatty acids.
—Cambridge’s Agios Pharmaceuticals nabbed $130 million from Summit, NJ-based Celgene (NASDAQ: [[ticker:CELG]]), in exchange for an exclusive option to license and develop Agios’ experimental cancer drugs, for a certain span of time. The deal essentially makes the Cambridge company Celgene’s cancer metabolism drug unit without outright acquiring it.
—The Daily Grommet, a Lexington, MA-based e-commerce company that promotes consumer products with online videos, has raised $3.4 million in Series A funding. The financing included
