Roche Acquires Anadys, Wests Create $100M Fund, Johnson & Johnson Makes Room for 20 Startups, & More San Diego Life Sciences News

99.1 percent accuracy if a fetus has Down syndrome. Sequenom says its proprietary test detects the abnormal chromosome for the syndrome in fragments of fetal DNA that circulate in the maternal bloodstream. Revelations concerning “mishandled” research data led Sequenom to shelve an RNA-based diagnostic test in 2009. Sequenom also recently announced plans to build an $18.7 million molecular diagnostics clinical laboratory in Research Triangle Park, NC.

—While the past decade has been all about generating DNA sequence data for whole genomes, Luke predicted in his BioBeat that the next decade will be all about interpreting that data. As such companies as Illumina, Life Technologies, Complete Genomics, and PacBio accelerate the speed of sequencing equipment, experts agree the $1,000 genome is only a couple years away.

—Using voice-recognition software much like the system already available in the Ford Edge crossover SUV, a team at Ford Research & Innovation near Detroit, MI, are developing technology to help diabetic motorists monitor their blood sugar on the go. At the Wireless Health 2011 Academic and Research Conference in San Diego last week, Ford’s K. Venkatesh Prasad said he’s been working with Medtronic and WellDoc to develop technologies that can motorists manage their chronic illnesses.

—We reported a series of financing deals for life sciences startups in the San Diego area: AnaptysBio got $8 million for its work on antibody-based therapies; Sonexa Therapeutics raised $1 million to advance its work on Alzheimer’s; Eclipse Therapeutics raised $2.8 million for it’s approach to treating cancer; and Naviscan got $830,000 to advance its Positron Emission Tomography scanner technology.

—Shanghai’s WuXi PharmaTech said it acquired Abgent, based in San Diego and Suzhou, China, which is one of the world’s largest makers of antibody reagents. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

—San Diego’s Panmira Pharmaceuticals, the startup created to develop promising drug candidates that were not part of Bristol-Myers Squibb’s $325 million acquisition of Amira Pharmaceuticals earlier this year, named Hari Kumar as CEO. Kumar was Amira’s chief business officer and led Amira’s side of the Bristol-Myers transaction—which was focused on the sale of Amira’s fibrosis program.

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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.