This week was dominated by financing news from younger, privately held New England drug developers and diagnostics and devices firms.
—Waltham, MA-based Proteon Therapeutics inked a $15.2 million equity- and options-based investment. The firm is developing drugs for kidney and vascular diseases.
—Fluidnet, an Amesbury, MA-based developer of electronic infusion pumps for administering IV fluids, raised $19.8 million of an equity offering that could total $25 million.
—Sudbury, MA- and Shreveport, LA-based Embera NeuroTherapeutics took in $4.5 million in Series A funding to put toward advancing its treatment for addictions, EMB-001, through a safety study and subsequent clinical trials. The money came from existing backers Louisiana Ventures, Louisiana Fund I, and Themelios Ventures, as well as other private investors.
—Lexington, MA-based lung disease drug developer Pulmatrix announced it raised $14 million in Series B financing and revealed its plans to advance its lead compound, PUR118, as a new treatment for cystic fibrosis and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). The funding came from all of Pulmatrix’s existing investors, which includes Polaris Venture Partners, 5AM Ventures, Arch Venture Partners, and Novartis Venture Fund.
—Healthcare companies in Massachusetts collectively raised $134 million in July, according to data from CB Insights‘ FundingFlash, a daily roundup of companies receiving venture capital, angel investment, and growth equity funding. Cambridge, MA-based obesity drug developer Zafgen led the way last month with $33 million.
—SEC documents revealed a couple of life sciences-related financings in the middle of this week: Cambridge-based Daktari Diagnostics ($1.17 million in debt-based funding), and Lebanon, NH-based PharmaSecure ($2.5 million of a $6 million equity offering). The companies are working on HIV diagnostic systems and medicine counterfeiting prevention, respectively.
—Xconomy Seattle and national biotech editor Luke Timmerman profiled Tony Coles as part of our new Xconomist of the Week feature. Coles, now the CEO of South San Francisco-based Onyx Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: [[ticker:ONXX]]), spent his residency training in cardiology and internal medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital. He got his master’s degree in public health from Harvard University and held a research fellowship at Harvard Medical School.
