Zacharon Aligns with Pfizer, Conatus Raises Big Bucks, Software Veteran Wins Wireless Institute Challenge, & More San Diego Life Sciences News

A couple of San Diego biotechs have managed to raise some venture capital in recent weeks. We’ve got details on their good fortune, along with the rest of the local life sciences roundup.

—In its first big partnership with a major pharmaceutical, San Diego’s Zacharon agreed to share its expertise in developing small-molecule drugs that interact with glycans with New York-based Pfizer (NYSE: [[ticker:PFE]]). The deal that could be worth as much as $210 million to Zacharon. Glycans are thought to be promising drug targets for rare diseases, including lysosomal storage disorders.

—Conatus Pharmaceuticals, a San Diego startup with a promising compound for treating Hepatitis C, said it has raised a total of $32.5 million in a Series B round of venture equity funding. The biotech closed the round with a $7.5 million investment by MPM Capital of South San Francisco, CA.

—Luke’s BioBeat column was about Stephen Friend, who quit his job as a senior vice president of cancer research at Merck to found Sage Bionetworks, a Seattle non-profit aiming to harness the “wisdom of crowds” to improve drug development and personalize medicine. Friend is building Sage with the idea that our genomic symphony is too cacophonic for any individual or team to sort out.

—In another turn of the wheel, Avalon Ventures founder Kevin Kinsella responded to comments made by Sofinnova Partners’ Antoine Papiernik in a continuing debate over criticisms that Kinsella has leveled against Big Pharma for its “bad behavior” in dealing with venture-backed biotechs. Because the costs and time required for extended pre-clinical development and extensive clinical trials have moved beyond the scope of venture capital, Kinsella says that biotech ventures are focusing their resources on easier bets with lower risks.

—The West Wireless Health Institute named Rhode Island software developer Steven Palmer as the winner of its $10,000 challenge to develop a cost-effective wireless device or mobile app that enables VA patients and their healthcare providers to share pertinent patient care data. Palmer, a Vietnam Veteran and melanoma survivor, won for an iPhone app he developed for use in a monthly self-examination for signs of the deadly skin cancer.

—San Diego’s Digital Healthcare Systems has raised $1.1 million of a planned $2.4 million from undisclosed investors. The two-year-old startup is not related to Cambridge, England-based Digital Healthcare, an 11-year-old health IT company that provides ophthalmologic image management and storage solutions.

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.