Upping the Ante: San Diego Life Sciences Startups Raise More Cash

Several San Diego life sciences companies raised money in the past few weeks, based on Form D notifications that companies are required to file with government regulators within 15 days after the first sale of securities in such offerings. The filings do not list the investors, however. Here’s a quick rundown of what I found:

—San Diego-based Biomatrica, which has developed technology that “shrink wraps” biological samples to protect them from degradation, has raised slightly more than $3 million, according to a recent regulatory filing. The company, which Luke profiled in 2009, plans to raise a total $3.3 million in equity and rights. Dow Jones VentureWire reports the company previously raised $1.2 million toward a $5 million equity round, with another $298,000 in rights and securities. The company’s past investors include In-Q-Tel, Mesa Verde Venture Partners, and existing angel investors.

—Celladon, a San Diego startup developing gene therapy treatments for heart attacks and other serious cardiovascular events, has landed $250,000 in debt and securities, according to a recent regulatory filing. The company, which raised $400,000 in July, has received close to $60 million from investors that include Enterprise Partners Venture Capital, Domain Associates, Johnson & Johnson Development Corp., Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and Venrock. Luke reported last year that a high dose of Celladon’s gene therapy offered a 50 percent lower risk of heart failure when compared with a placebo.

—San Diego’s Abrexa Pharmaceuticals raised $500,000 in a combination of debt, rights, and equity, according to a regulatory filing. Domain Associates’ partner Eckhard Weber is identified as both an executive and director of the startup, but Weber did not respond yesterday to an e-mail query about the company. It also is not listed as a portfolio company on Domain’s website.

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.