hospital nurses manage their workload. The PatientTouch device is designed to help nurses manage their clinical care workflow, guide patient care, coordinate tasks and communicate with other nurses and doctors (using a hospital’s Wi-Fi network for text messaging or Voice-over-Internet Protocol calls), and to collect and record patient vital signs and other data in real time.
—San Diego-based Acutus Medical, which raised $1 million from Index Ventures in August, now has $3.3 million of a planned $4.6 million venture round, according to VentureWire. Acutus, founded earlier this year, has been developing technology for mapping atrial fibrillation and other types of cardiac arrhythmias.
—San Diego-based Ligand Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: [[ticker:LGND]]) said it signed a global licensing agreement with Chiva Pharmaceuticals, the U.S. affiliate of a Hong Kong drug company, for lasofoxifene (Fablyn), a drug used to treat osteoporosis in post-menopausal women. The European Union approved lasofoxifene in 2009. Ligand said it will get $4 million in licensing payments over the next eight months, and also would be eligible for additional payments on worldwide sales of the drug.
—BioNanomatrix, which moved its headquarters to San Diego from Philadelphia this summer, said it has changed its name to BioNano Genomics to better reflect the company’s focus on using nano-scale technology to analyze DNA and other long biomolecules. BioNano Genomics’ proprietary nanoAnalyzer System uses single-molecule imaging technology to visualize extremely long nucleic acids, making genomic analysis more available to biomedical researchers and clinicians who want simpler ways of examining whole genomes.
—San Diego-based AnaptysBio, which has been developing antibody therapeutics, named Carol Gallagher as executive chairwoman of its board. AnaptysBio also named Hamza Suria as chief business officer and acting CEO, and David J. King as chief scientific officer. Gallagher was the CEO of Seattle’s Calistoga Pharmaceuticals before it was acquired by Gilead Sciences earlier this year. In September, the company said the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) had extended its contract with AnaptysBio to help develop antibody-based biosensors to detect bioterror agents.
