Plenty of public New England life sciences companies have been making headlines this week.
—Anesthesia drug developer Annovation BioPharma socked away $8 million in funding from Atlas Venture, Partners Innovation Fund, and The Medicines Company (NASDAQ: [[ticker:MDCO]]), which has the option to acquire the startup after it runs its clinical trial in the first half of 2013.
—Bedford, MA-based iWalk, which develops a powered prosthetic foot and ankle, said that it raised $17 million in Series D funding led by Gilde Healthcare Partners. The investment also came from previous investors General Catalyst, Sigma Partners, and WFD Ventures.
—The New England robotics giant iRobot (NASDAQ: [[ticker:IRBT]]), also of Bedford, is expanding its business into the healthcare space with its RP-VITA robots, designed to work in hospitals as an extension of doctors and nurses.
—Athenahealth (NASDAQ: [[ticker:ATHN]]), the Watertown, MA-based provider of electronic health records systems, announced it is acquiring Boston-based Healthcare Data Services. The purchase, expected to close in October, is meant to expand Athenahealth’s cloud-based data analysis and reporting for population health management.
—At a conference in San Francisco this week, New Haven, CT-based Rib-X Pharmaceuticals revealed positive clinical trial data for two of its experimental antibiotics drugs, Mass High Tech reports.
—Waltham, MA-based PerkinElmer (NYSE: [[ticker:PKI]]) bought exclusive worldwide rights to use infrastructure software from Palo Alto, CA-based TIBCO Software (NASDAQ: [[ticker:TIBX]]) in certain scientific research and development markets, including pre-clinical development applications and quality control in chemical, petrochemical, environmental, food and beverage, consumer products, and academia. As part of the strategic relationship, PerkinElmer, a provider of life sciences tools and services, will be charged with growing the business for TIBCO’s Spotfire software in those markets. TIBCO has a sizable presence in Somerville, MA, from its $195 million acquisition of Spotfire in 2007.
