This week we took an in-depth look at several New England area biotechs, and saw some interesting developments from bigger drugmakers.
—I checked in with Holden, MA-based Hygeia Therapeutics, a startup developing topically delivered synthetic hormone treatments, using technology licensed from Yale University. The biotech has gathered pre-clinical data on a synthetic estrogen product for the treatment of age-related skin thinning.
—Ryan profiled Selventa, a Cambridge, MA-based startup formerly named Genstruct that is developing software to help pair the right patients with the right experimental treatments—before expensive clinical research trials are done. The firm, which has kept pretty quiet about its technology since starting in 2002, is now making a push to publicize its research and technology.
—Cambridge-based Aileron Therapeutics inked a deal for exclusive rights to “click” chemistry technology from The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, CA.
—Antibody technology developer Adimab, of Lebanon, NH, brought in a $4 million Series E funding round. The startup, which was founded in 2007 and is working on yeast-based human antibody discovery technology, raised the financing at a pre-money valuation of $520 million, which is double the value of the company when it raised its last round in October 2009.
—Cambridge-based Aveo Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:[[ticker:AVEO]]) said it will bring in $25 million in two equal payments from OSI Pharmaceuticals, which has exercised its option to Aveo’s technology for research in cancer and patient biomarker selection. Aveo’s platform allows researchers to engineer animal models with genetic mutations that are present in human forms of cancer.
—GlaxoSmithKline axed a mid-stage clinical trial of SRT501, a drug it picked up as part of its 2008 acquisition of Cambridge-based Sirtris Pharmaceuticals that is a formulation of the “red wine” chemical resveratrol. Glaxo chose to
