Nuance, IlluminOss, and Biogen Among the Boston Life Sciences Headlines

Drug development, financing, and acquisition news was big in the New England biotech and health IT scenes this week.

—InVivo Therapeutics, a developer of treatments for spinal cord injury, celebrated the opening of its new Kendall Square office and lab space in Cambridge, MA, which will serve as the company’s headquarters.

—On Wednesday Biogen Idec and development partner Swedish Orphan Biovitrum (Sobi) announced positive data from a phase 3 clinical trial of their experimental drug for treating a rare inherited disorder called hemophilia B. Weston-based Biogen (NASDAQ: [[ticker:BIIB]]) plans to submit a biologics license application to the FDA in the first half of next year and plans to seek approval with the European Medicines Agency after completing a study with the drug in children.

—East Providence, RI-based IlluminOss Medical, which develops bone implant technology, said that it raised $28 million in Series C financing, co-led by Life Sciences Partners and Tekla Capital Management, the registered investment advisor to theBoston-based H&Q Funds. Existing investors Foundation Medical Partners, Mieza Capital, and New Leaf Venture Partners joined the deal, as did new investors SR One, Excel Venture Management, Pappas Ventures, and the Slater Technology Fund.

—Nuance Communications (NASDAQ: [[ticker:NUAN]]) revealed its plans to acquire Quantim, the unit of Reston, VA-based QuadraMed that focuses on health information management software and services. Burlington, MA-based Nuance didn’t disclose what it paid for the company.

—And SEC filings revealed new financing for a couple of local life sciences companies: $2 million for Lexington, MA-based iSpecimen, which aims to connect researchers with sources of clinical laboratory specimens, and $5.5 million for Aushon Biosystems, a Billerica, MA-based protein biomarker research tech company.

Author: Erin Kutz

Erin Kutz has a background in covering business, politics and general news. She holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Boston University. Erin previously worked in the Boston bureau of Reuters, where she wrote articles on the investment management and mutual fund industries. While in college, she researched for USA Today reporter Jayne O’Donnell’s book, Gen Buy: How Tweens, Teens and Twenty-Somethings Are Revolutionizing Retail. She also spent a semester in Washington, DC, reporting Capitol Hill stories as a correspondent for two Connecticut newspapers and interning in the Money section of USA Today, where she assisted with coverage on the retail and small business beats. Erin got her first taste of reporting at Boston University’s independent student newspaper, as a city section reporter and fact checker and editor of the paper’s weekly business section.