San Diego Life Sciences Roundup: Halozyme, Sophiris, Arena, & More

Plans by Bedford, MA-based Hologic to acquire San Diego’s Gen-Probe, are moving ahead. We’ve got the latest details, along with the rest of the innovation news in San Diego’s biotech, diagnostics, and medical device sectors.

—San Diego’s BioNano Genomics, which is getting ready to introduce its nanoAnalyzer System, has raised almost $11.6 million in a mix of equity, rights, and securities that targets almost $14 million, according to a recent regulatory filing. In a statement issued the same day, the company said it has raised $10 million in a Series B-1 round. Existing investors Battelle Ventures, Domain Associates and Gund Investment participated in the round. The company, founded in 2007 as BioNanomatrix, says its single-molecule imaging technology captures extremely long molecules at high resolution, enabling scientists to visualize an entire genome. BioNano Genomics says its approach should provide the context that has been missing in efforts to make the link between phenotypic variation and genomic variation.

—Sophiris Bio, which moved to San Diego from Canada last year, plans to meet with FDA regulators this summer to determine the design of pivotal clinical trials for an experimental drug intended to treat enlarged prostate glands. Lars Ekman, a Sofinnova Ventures partner who has stepped in as CEO at the company, told me there will likely be two clinical trials, with 500 to 600 patients in each. Sophiris Bio, which currently trades on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol SHS, also will need to raise additional capital for the trials.

—San Diego-based Gen-Probe (NASDAQ: [[ticker:GPRO]]) has scheduled a special meeting of

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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.