San Diego Life Sciences Roundup: Regulus, Aragon, Cytori, & More

its existing private investors. The closing was part of a plan to raise $76 million needed to fund three late-stage trials of the company’s liver therapy. The company has raised more than $75 million since it was founded nine years ago.

—The Qualcomm Foundation awarded a $3.75 million grant to San Diego’s Scripps Health and its affiliated Scripps Translational Science Institute to support the development of innovative digital health technologies. Scripps said the funding would advance clinical trials of advanced biosensor systems, the creation of rapid diagnostic tests intended to match patients with the prescribed drug that’s best-suited for their genetic makeup, and the development of apps and sensors for tracking and predicting heart attacks, Type 1 diabetes, and certain cancers.

—San Diego’s Cytori Therapeutics (Nasdaq: [[ticker:CYTX]]) said it received a contract from the Department of Health and Human Services’ Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) that could be worth as much as $106 million. The contract calls for Cytori to develop its stem cell therapy technology to treat thermal burns associated with radiation exposure and injury. The company says the contract is intended to create a new treatment following a mass casualty event.

—San Diego-based Senomyx (NASDAQ: [[ticker:SNMX]]) said the FDA has determined that the company’s new flavor ingredient, known as S9632, meets criteria established for additives that are Generally Recognized As Safe (GRAS). The finding enables S9632 to be used in certain drinks and food products. Senomyx said S9632 can be used to restore

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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.