San Diego Life Sciences Roundup: Regulus, MEI Pharma, Qualcomm & More

Against a backdrop of declining VC activity in the life sciences, it’s heartening to see several financing deals come through for companies in the San Diego region. Here’s our rundown.

—The Midwest isn’t the only place experiencing a drought. Venture funding for life sciences startups throughout the U.S. fell 39 percent in the second quarter, compared to the same quarter of 2011, according to a just-released MoneyTree report called “Dollar Drought.” This marks the sector’s fourth straight quarterly decline in dollars and deals. The amount of capital invested in both biotech and devices fell to 20 percent of the overall total of VC dollars. The report, which is available here, is focused more specifically on life sciences than the latest venture capital survey from PricewaterhouseCoopers, the National Venture Capital Association, and Thomson Reuters.

—San Diego cancer specialist MEI Pharma (NASDAQ: [[ticker:MEIP]]) said it has reached an agreement to buy exclusive worldwide rights to a potential best-in-class drug that is a selective inhibitor of a group of enzymes called histone deacetylases (HDAC). MEI plans to issue $500,000 of common stock to Singapore’s S*Bio under an agreement that includes potential milestone payments of $75.2 million and other contingent earn-outs. The experimental compound, Pracinostat, has shown potential effect in patients with certain blood cancers and solid tumors.

—Elcelyx Therapeutics, founded in San Diego two years to develop new treatments for obesity and diabetes, said it has $4 million of a planned $7-million extension of its Series B round of financing. The additional cash is needed to fund late-stage trials of its nutritional supplement and a delayed release formulation of generic metformin HCL (NewMet) for patients with Type 2 diabetes. Elcelyx has raised a total of $20 million from Morgenthaler Ventures, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and Technology Partners.

—Carlsbad, CA-based Tragara Pharmaceuticals has raised $4 million of a planned $6 million round of debt and rights, according to a recent regulatory filing. The company’s work is focused on a

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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.