Illumina Launches Desktop Gene Sequencer, Avalon Raises $200M for Ninth Fund, Quidel Offering Raises Capital for New Strategy, & More San Diego Life Sciences News

Many life sciences executives have been making announcements timed to the annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco this week, so we have plenty of biotech news to round up.

—A race among genetic device companies is dramatically lowering costs and accelerating the speed of sequencing complete human genomes. San Diego-based Illumina (NASDAQ: [[ticker:ILMN]]) introduced the MiSeq, a new desktop-sized DNA sequencing machine that will sell for less than $125,000 by April. Last month, Carlsbad, CA-based Life Technologies (NASDAQ: [[ticker:LIFE]]) introduced the Ion Torrent Personal Genome Machine, priced at $50,000. Luke also reported that Complete Genomics (NASDAQ: [[ticker:GNOM]]) of Mountain View, CA, also showed it’s in the run when it agreed to sequence 615 complete human genomes for the Seattle-based Institute for Systems Biology, a nonprofit research center that wants the genomes for its research into neurodegenerative diseases.

—San Diego’s Avalon Ventures closed its ninth fund at an oversubscribed $200 million. The venture firm, which divides its investments between the life sciences and digital media startups, said it plans to invest between $100,000 and $10 million in 15 to 20 companies over the next three years. New investors to the fund include Harvard Management Co., AlpInvest Partners NV, Grove Street Advisors, Paul Capital and Northgate Capital, according to VentureWire.

—At the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco, Amylin Pharmaceuticals CEO Dan Bradbury told reporters he still expects the company will meet its timetable and submit a heart-safety study for its once-weekly diabetes drug Bydureon by the end of 2011. “We will initiate the study in the first quarter and we remain very confident that we will be able to complete the required work by the end of 2011,” Bradbury said.

—San Diego’s Acadia Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: [[ticker:ACAD]]) raised close to $15 million in a stock sale intended to provide funding for late-stage trials of a Parkinson’s drug and extend Acadia’s available cash into 2013.

—Quidel (NASDAQ: [[ticker:QDEL]]), the San Diego diagnostic test maker, said it expected to raise about $57.4 million by selling 4.6 million shares in a secondary public offering. The company plans to use the funding for working capital and other

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Author: Bruce V. Bigelow

In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here. Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.