Acquisitions news has stolen the show for Boston-area tech and life sciences headlines in the last week, but we’ve also seen some funding and partnership news.
—The Boston area saw its biggest ever biotech acquisition, with the sale of Cambridge, MA-based Genzyme (NASDAQ: [[ticker:GENZ]]) to French drug company Sanofi-Aventis for $20.1 billion, or $74 per share. Genzyme shareholders are also entitled to additional payments tied to milestones primarily related to Genzyme’s experimental drug for multiple sclerosis, alemtuzumab, which is already on the market for treating leukemia.
—Constant Contact (NASDAQ: [[ticker:CTCT]]) of Waltham, MA, acquired New York-based Bantam Live, a provider of social customer relationship management technology, in a $15 million cash deal that closed on February 15. The Bantam technology enables Constant Contact to create a unified repository of data across all of its online marketing channels, which include e-mail, social networking, and surveys.
—Cambridge-based Aveo Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: [[ticker:AVEO]]) inked a potential $1.4 billion deal with Japanese drugmaker Astellas Pharma, in the form of a $125 million initial payment and as much as $1.3 billion in potential milestone payments for certain rights to Aveo’s lead cancer treatment tivozanib.
—Greg caught word of a few Boston area startups that have brought in some cash. Take The Interview, a developer of a Web-based video interviewing system to make the job recruiting process more efficient, has raised some angel funding. And Open Mile received money last year from Charles River Ventures to put toward its Web- and mobile-based technology for helping shipping companies more effectively and economically match supply and demand.
—Cambridge video marketing startup Pixability brought in just over $1 million in an angel funding round led by Launchpad Venture Group. Other area angel groups, including
