780 venture deals nationwide. Funding for biotech companies was the second-highest funding level for all industries, with $944 million going into 108 deals. Funding for medical devices and equipment amounted to $573 million for 82 deals.
—The CompStudy, a salary survey from the executive search firm J. Robert Scott, Ernst & Young, and academics at Harvard University, says average base salaries for non-founding tech executives rose 3.3 percent from 2009 to 2010. The study says non-founding tech CEOs pulled in an average base salary of $235,000 in 2010, up from $230,000 last year. And non-founding life sciences chief executives saw their salaries rise from $277,000 to $288,000.
—I profiled the unusual headquarters that Avalon Ventures founder Kevin Kinsella acquired earlier this year in La Jolla. Kinsella, who helped to start and finance more than 60 startups, including ReVision Therapeutics, AXYX Pharmaceuticals, Onyx Pharmaceuticals, and Athena Neurosciences, reportedly paid $3.75 million to buy the former James S. Copley Library, now known as The Kinsella Library.
—Anadys Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: [[ticker:ANDS]]) raised about $25 million through a stock offering, selling almost 14 million shares at $1.80 apiece. The San Diego biotech is working on a treatment for hepatitis C.
—Ambit Biosciences raised $15 million of a planned $15.9 million venture financing round. The San Diego company, previously known as Aventa Biosciences, is developing anti-cancer therapies by developing a wide array of small molecule drug compounds to block certain kinase-based reactions.
—The FDA has stamped its most serious classification on an electronic intravenous infusion pump sold by San Diego’s CareFusion (NYSE: [[ticker:CFN]]). CareFusion says certain wireless network conditions can trigger “intermittent communication errors” that freeze the unit’s display screen, a glitch that could cause “serious adverse health consequences or death.”
