Grants, acquisitions, partnerships, and venture funding news was seen throughout the New England drug and devices industries this week.
—Natick, MA-based Boston Scientific (NASDAQ: [[ticker:BSX]]) said that it signed a definitive agreement to acquire BridgePoint Medical, a Minneapolis, MN-based developer of a catheter systems for treating coronary artery disease. The deal, whose price tag was not disclosed, is expected to close fourth quarter of 2012.
—Foundation Medicine inked a $42.5 million investment, bringing its total funding pot to $86 million. A diverse syndicate of corporate, hedge fund, and venture investors came together to back the Cambridge, MA-based biotech company, including Deerfield Management, Roche Venture Fund, Third Rock Ventures, Google Ventures, and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.
—Boston- and San Francisco-based Third Rock also backed MyoKardia to the tune of $38 million. The startup, setting up shop in San Francisco, is developing drugs that treat genetic defects like hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, which causes a thickening of the heart tissue and irregular heartbeats, and which killed Boston Celtics player Reggie Lewis about 20 years ago.
—Cambridge-based Constellation Pharmaceuticals inked a strategic partnership worth up to $7.5 million with the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, to advance the development of a novel drug for treating blood and bone marrow cancers.
—And GnuBio was one of six recipients of grants awarded by the National Human Genome Research Institute. Its $4.5 million award was the largest of the $19 million pool, and will help the Cambridge-based company advance its platform technology that aims to accurately sequence a whole genome for less than $1,000.
