Category: Boston

Former “Daily Show” Producer Karlin is Humorist Behind WonderGlen Comedy Site

Since October, the Internet has been abuzz with discussion about WonderGlen, a fictional TV production company whose fake company intranet is a window onto the obsessions of a staff that takes dysfunction well beyond the levels of Dunder Mifflin, the fictional paper company in NBC’s “The Office.” Much of the buzz has focused on the … Continue reading “Former “Daily Show” Producer Karlin is Humorist Behind WonderGlen Comedy Site”

Angel Groups Pull Back in 2008

It would have been a surprise—at least to me—to see any group of investors seek more deals in this turbulent economy. So it wasn’t shocking to see that many angel groups reported less deal activity in the Angel Capital Association’s (ACA) latest nationwide Angel Group Confidence Report. The Lenexa, KS-based angel association says it tapped … Continue reading “Angel Groups Pull Back in 2008”

Panacos Pharma Plans Layoffs

Panacos Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:[[ticker:PANC]]), a Watertown, MA-based developer of drugs for HIV, announced that it plans to immediately reduce its workforce to 15 workers from 33 employees to manage its capital while the firm seeks such strategic options as a financing, partnership, sale of the company, or sale of certain assets. Last month Panacos said that … Continue reading “Panacos Pharma Plans Layoffs”

Infinity Pharmaceuticals Gets Back Full Rights to Cancer Drugs From AstraZeneca

Infinity Pharmaceuticals is regaining full commercial rights to develop cancer drugs that block a target called heat shock protein 90. The biotech company’s partner, London-based drugmaker AstraZeneca, decided to hand back its 50 percent stake in the program to its partner Cambridge, MA-based Infinity (NASDAQ: [[ticker:INFI]]) This news could be spun a couple ways. It … Continue reading “Infinity Pharmaceuticals Gets Back Full Rights to Cancer Drugs From AstraZeneca”

Semprus Raises 8M Series A Round

Semprus BioSciences, a Cambridge, MA-based developer of antimicrobial coatings for medical devices, has raised $8 million in a Series A financing round, according to Mass High Tech. MHT reports that 5AM Ventures, which has an office in Waltham, MA, and Pangaea Ventures, of Vancouver, co-led the round.

Salary.com to Buy Genesys

Salary.com, the Waltham, MA-based compensation and personnel-management software firm, announced that it has agreed to acquire human resource-management software provider Genesys Software Systems, which has an office in Methuen, MA. Salary.com, which expects to close the deal by December 17, has agreed to buy the company for a total of $6.8 million in cash and … Continue reading “Salary.com to Buy Genesys”

Spark Contributes to Tumblr’s $4.5 Million Series B Round

Boston’s Spark Capital and New York’s Union Square Ventures are the lead co-investors in a $4.5 million Series B financing round for Tumblr, a tiny New York-based startup that offers a stripped down, extremely user-friendly “microblogging” platform. The investment, announced this morning, is a huge boost over the startup’s $775,000 initial financing, led last year … Continue reading “Spark Contributes to Tumblr’s $4.5 Million Series B Round”

Alnylam Forms UCSF Collaboration

Alnylam Pharmeceuticals (NASDAQ:[[ticker:ALNY]]), a Cambridge, MA-based developer of RNA-interference (RNAi) drugs, says it has formed a collaboration with the University of California, San Francisco, to explore the use of RNAi therapeutics to treat eye tumors. In previous research, scientists have found that RNAi treatments silenced a gene linked to the survival of eye tumor cells.

Online Communities Meet Clinical Trials: Inspire’s Co-Founder on Social Networking, “Health 2.0,” and Trust

One thing leads to another, especially for reporters. After we published our Boston Health 2.0 Cluster story in June, I started getting a lot of invitations to attend and/or moderate local events relating the Web’s influence on the healthcare market. One such event was a weekend brunch hosted by IC Sciences executive vice president Steve … Continue reading “Online Communities Meet Clinical Trials: Inspire’s Co-Founder on Social Networking, “Health 2.0,” and Trust”

Lightwave Power Inc Obtains Series A Round

Feed Type Link http://www.venturedeal.com/Search/SearchResultTransactionDetail.aspx?TransactionId=17a09045-9308-4afb-a7fb-e52901becf09&Preview=1 Date 12/11/2008 Company Name Lightwave Power Inc Mailing Address 57 Smith Place Cambridge, MA 02138 Company Description Lightwave Power, Inc. is a venture capital financed startup that was founded in January 2008 and is developing novel solar energy products based on nanoarrays and 2-dimensional photonic crystal arrays. Four founders with experience … Continue reading “Lightwave Power Inc Obtains Series A Round”

FDA Panel Votes Down Acusphere Drug

An FDA advisory panel voted 16-1 (with one panelist abstaining) against recommending approval of Watertown, MA-based Acusphere’s (NASDAQ:[[ticker:ACUS]]) heart imaging agent, citing abnormally low blood pressure and other reported side effects of perflubutane polymer microspheres (Imagify) as concerns, the AP reports. The imaging agent is intended for use in diagnosing heart disease. The FDA is … Continue reading “FDA Panel Votes Down Acusphere Drug”

A Car Company at the Web Innovators Group?

Last night’s 20th meeting of the Web Innovators Group at Cambridge’s Royal Sonesta Hotel was possibly the largest ever, spilling from the usual ballroom into the adjacent conference rooms and attracting a crowd so thick that it was difficult to see the demo tables. Perhaps the high attendance was to be expected, given the layoffs … Continue reading “A Car Company at the Web Innovators Group?”

India’s Innovation Front Lines, Part 3: Of Property Markets, Both Physical and Intellectual

New Delhi, December 10—The housing meltdown in the U.S. got me thinking about the property market in India. With the dramatic urbanization and growth of Indian cities property prices have skyrocketed. In good neighborhoods in Delhi prices have increased 100x in 30 years. I met a small dairy farmer who supplied a neighborhood with milk … Continue reading “India’s Innovation Front Lines, Part 3: Of Property Markets, Both Physical and Intellectual”

Lucid Imagination Raises $6 Million for Open Source Search Support

Lucid Imagination, a startup in Newton Highlands, MA, that specializes in support and services for the open-source search technologies Lucene and Solr, has collected $6 million out of a $7.5 million Series A financing round, according to a report yesterday in Private Equity Hub. Lucid’s Series A investors include Granite Ventures and Walden International, both … Continue reading “Lucid Imagination Raises $6 Million for Open Source Search Support”

Acusphere Stock Temporarily Halted During FDA Panel on Heart Imaging Drug

(UPDATE: This story has been corrected from an earlier version, which said Acusphere stock has been “bounced” from the Nasdaq exchange. The shares haven’t been de-listed, but trading in Acusphere has been temporarily halted today while an FDA advisory panel meets to discuss whether to recommend approval of its lead product candidate, Imagify. This is … Continue reading “Acusphere Stock Temporarily Halted During FDA Panel on Heart Imaging Drug”

Targanta Faces New Challenges to Raise Cash After FDA Shoots Down the Firm’s Antibiotic

Targanta Therapeutics (NASDAQ:[[ticker:TARG]]) faces an uphill journey now that the FDA has decided to not to approve the Cambridge, MA-based biotech firm’s antibiotic oritavancin. The FDA, in summary, told Targanta to conduct an additional clinical trial to show the safety and effectiveness of oritavancin before it seeks approval again. The drug is intended to treat … Continue reading “Targanta Faces New Challenges to Raise Cash After FDA Shoots Down the Firm’s Antibiotic”

Novartis Deal Could Boost Ascent by $200M, Ariad’s Boardroom Drama Comes to Light, Targanta Takes Another Hit, & More Boston-Area Life Sciences News

Boston-area life sciences firms made a good showing at two important meetings this week. Luke and Ryan gave the rundown on those, and took a look at a couple very interesting startups. —Ryan checked in with Frank Reynolds, spinal-cord-injury survivor and CEO of InVivo Therapeutics, about the progress of his company’s Cambridge, MA-based effort to … Continue reading “Novartis Deal Could Boost Ascent by $200M, Ariad’s Boardroom Drama Comes to Light, Targanta Takes Another Hit, & More Boston-Area Life Sciences News”

Boston-Power Strikes Deal with Hewlett-Packard to Market Longer-Lived, Eco-Friendly Laptop Batteries

After raising $70 million in venture funding and spending more than three years on the development of next-generation lithium-ion batteries, Westborough, MA-based Boston-Power has won its first big customer: It’s the supplier behind a new line of replacement laptop batteries from Hewlett-Packard. Branded as the “HP Enviro Series” but based entirely on Boston-Power’s Sonata technology, … Continue reading “Boston-Power Strikes Deal with Hewlett-Packard to Market Longer-Lived, Eco-Friendly Laptop Batteries”

Mobile Photo Community SnapMyLife Uploads Another $5 Million

Back in April I wrote about Mobicious, a Needham, MA, startup that once focused on publishing a directory of mobile applications but took a dramatic turn in direction by launching a free, advertising-supported photo-sharing community called SnapMyLife that’s optimized for mobile phones, especially the Apple iPhone. After just eight months, SnapMyLife has signed up more … Continue reading “Mobile Photo Community SnapMyLife Uploads Another $5 Million”

Mobicious Secures $5,000,000 New Funding

Feed Type Link http://www.venturedeal.com/Search/SearchResultTransactionDetail.aspx?TransactionId=a79f7828-6e00-44ef-ba19-99a073f7d69e&Preview=1 Date 12/10/2008 Company Name Mobicious Mailing Address 250 First Ave Needham, MA 02494 Company Description Our goal is to be the best place to find anything for your phone – including useful texting services for weather, news and sports, the most popular music and videos, trustworthy places to buy ringtones, images … Continue reading “Mobicious Secures $5,000,000 New Funding”

FDA Panel Gives Nod to Genzyme Osteoarthritis Treatment

An FDA advisory panel has voted 5-0 in favor of recommending approval of Cambridge, MA-based Genzyme’s (NASDAQ:[[ticker:GENZ]]) osteoarthritis treatment hylan GF 20 (Synvisc-One) in single injections, the company announced Tuesday. Christopher Raymond, an analyst for Robert W. Baird, reiterated his “outperform” rating on Genzyme’s stock with the following note: “Although FDA does not necessarily have … Continue reading “FDA Panel Gives Nod to Genzyme Osteoarthritis Treatment”

New Biotechs and Other Tidbits from Mass Biotech Council Pitch Event

Last week I wrote that the current financial crisis would likely flavor the goings on here at today’s Massachusetts Biotechnology Council’s (MBC) 10th annual investors forum, and my conversations from biotech executives and the early comments of industry officials on event panels confirmed this repeatedly. Bob Coughlin, president of the MBC, stressed that “creativity” was … Continue reading “New Biotechs and Other Tidbits from Mass Biotech Council Pitch Event”

Venrock Leads $10M Aria B Round

Cambridge, MA-based venture firm Venrock is the lead investor in a $10 million Series B funding round just completed by Aria Systems, a Media, PA-based provider of Web-based billing services, the startup announced yesterday. Existing investors Hummer Winblad Venture Partners and Dave Labuda joined the round, and Venrock managing general partner Ray Rothrock will join … Continue reading “Venrock Leads $10M Aria B Round”

FDA Declines Approval of Targanta Antibiotic

Targanta Therapeutics (NASDAQ:[[ticker:TARG]]), a Cambridge, MA-based developer of antibiotics, says that the FDA has declined to approve the company’s application for approval of antibiotic oritavancin as a treatment for complicated skin and skin structure infections, telling the biotech firm that it needs to conduct additional clinical studies to demonstrate safety and effectiveness of the drug. … Continue reading “FDA Declines Approval of Targanta Antibiotic”

Blood News: A Quick Rundown of Headlines From the American Society of Hematology

The American Society of Hematology (ASH) is one of those scientific meetings that usually flies below the radar of the wire services and big newspapers. Still, this year’s event in San Francisco has drawn more than 21,000 physicians, scientists, and intensely interested folks from biotech companies and Wall Street. They are all scouting new treatments … Continue reading “Blood News: A Quick Rundown of Headlines From the American Society of Hematology”

City Trash Cans Go Solar—and Wireless—to Save Big Bucks on Garbage Trucks

The only solar-powered trash compactor that most people could name is Wall-E, the fictional lovestruck robot from this summer’s Pixar movie. But in Boston, San Diego, Seattle, and more than a dozen other major cities, you can meet the real thing: the BigBelly Cordless Compaction System, a 200-gallon robotic trash container manufactured by Needham, MA-based … Continue reading “City Trash Cans Go Solar—and Wireless—to Save Big Bucks on Garbage Trucks”

Lucid Imagination Inc Garners $6,000,000 Series A Funding Round

Feed Type Link http://www.venturedeal.com/Search/SearchResultTransactionDetail.aspx?TransactionId=513e861b-22e6-4027-8590-a346c5c50a46&Preview=1 Date 12/9/2008 Company Name Lucid Imagination Inc Mailing Address 32 Duncklee Inc Newton Highlands, MA 02461 Company Description Lucid ImaginationTM delivers support and services for the open source Apache Lucene search library and Apache Solr search server. We provide support contracts, training, consulting and value-add software. Website http://www.lucidimagination.com Transaction Type Venture … Continue reading “Lucid Imagination Inc Garners $6,000,000 Series A Funding Round”

Millennium’s Velcade, As Time Wears On, Shows Durable Ability to Prolong Lives

Millennium Pharmaceuticals may not be the breakout performer at this year’s American Society of Hematology (ASH) meeting like it was a year ago, but another 12 months of follow-up data is strengthening the case that its cancer drug is no fluke. Cambridge, MA-based Millennium, now a unit of Japan’s Takeda Pharmaceuticals, presented follow-up data today … Continue reading “Millennium’s Velcade, As Time Wears On, Shows Durable Ability to Prolong Lives”

Rib-X Reveals “Positive” Antibiotic Data

Rib-X Pharmaceuticals, a New Haven, CT-based developer of antibiotics, announced that its antibiotic delafloxacin in both 300 mg and 450 mg doses was as effective as an FDA-approved antibiotic in treating patients with complicated skin and skin structure infections in a mid-stage clinical trial. In October I wrote a feature profile about Rib-X and its … Continue reading “Rib-X Reveals “Positive” Antibiotic Data”

McAfee Integrates Liquid Machines Security Technologies

Waltham, MA-based Liquid Machines, a document protection company we profiled in February, announced today that its software will be incorporated into various products from Santa Clara, CA-based McAfee, including McAfee Data Loss Prevention. The company says the software will enable users of McAfee software to locate sensitive documents on corporate networks and prevent them from … Continue reading “McAfee Integrates Liquid Machines Security Technologies”

Brightcove Launches Developer Network, Competes with thePlatform

Jeremy Allaire, CEO of Cambridge, MA-based Brightcove, told Xconomy back in October that the company had designed its new Brightcove 3 online video management platform to be extensible, using plug-ins from an envisioned “extended ecosystem” of third-party developers. Today the company formally launched such a network, the Brightcove Alliance, that gives outside developer partners access … Continue reading “Brightcove Launches Developer Network, Competes with thePlatform”

Gloucester Drug Shrinks Tumors in Lymphoma Study

Gloucester Pharmaceuticals, a privately-held biotech company in Cambridge, MA, said today that its experimental drug romidepsin reached its goal in a Phase II clinical trial of patients with cutaneous T-cell lymphoma. Researchers at Stanford Cancer Center found 30 of 72 patients (42 percent) had their tumors completely or partially go away, according to research presented … Continue reading “Gloucester Drug Shrinks Tumors in Lymphoma Study”

Alnylam Buys More RNAi Patents From Nucleonics

Cambridge, MA-based Alnylam Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: [[ticker:ALNY]]) said today it has acquired a load of intellectual property that includes more than 100 active patent applications and 16 issued patents worldwide from Langhorne, PA-based Nucleonics. The intellectual property is meant to strengthen Alnylam’s grip on its right to develop drugs using RNA Interference technology, or gene silencing. … Continue reading “Alnylam Buys More RNAi Patents From Nucleonics”

Spire Shines with $54.9M Solar Contract

Bedford, MA-based Spire Corp (NASDAQ: [[ticker:SPIR]]), a leading supplier of equipment for manufacturing solar photovoltaic power modules, announced today that it has won a $54.9 million contract to supply solar cells for a photovoltaic factory at the Federal Correctional Institution in Otisville, NY. The contract was awarded by Federal Prison Industries.

Ariad CEO Fires Back at Resigning Directors and Their “False and Misleading” Attacks

Ariad Pharmaceuticals Chairman and CEO Harvey Berger defended himself this morning in a conference call with investors, after a nasty boardroom dispute spilled out into plain view and four directors accused him of “grossly inappropriate” conduct. The controversy emerged late Friday when Ariad disclosed in a regulatory filing that four of its nine directors resigned … Continue reading “Ariad CEO Fires Back at Resigning Directors and Their “False and Misleading” Attacks”

Curis Gets $3M From Genentech For Ovarian Cancer Trial Initiation

Cambridge, MA-based Curis (NASDAQ: [[ticker:CRIS]]) said today it will receive a $3 million cash payment from its partner, Genentech (NYSE: [[ticker:DNA]]). The payment is due because Genentech is starting a clinical trial among patients with ovarian cancer. Researchers will look at 100 patients with the disease, taking either a placebo or GDC-0449, an oral pill … Continue reading “Curis Gets $3M From Genentech For Ovarian Cancer Trial Initiation”

Finding Another Saudi Arabia Under Detroit: Amory Lovins on the Economic Logic of Energy Efficiency and the Overthrow of Bad Engineering

Xconomy had the great privilege last week of hosting energy guru Amory Lovins, the cofounder, chairman, and chief scientist of the famous Rocky Mountain Institute resource think tank in Colorado, for a “fireside chat” with local venture community leader Paul Maeder of Highland Capital Partners. There was no real fire or other unwarranted carbon emissions, … Continue reading “Finding Another Saudi Arabia Under Detroit: Amory Lovins on the Economic Logic of Energy Efficiency and the Overthrow of Bad Engineering”

Avila Comes Out of Stealth to Talk Bonds, Covalent Bonds

Remember that 10th grade chemistry lesson on the difference between covalent and ionic bonds? Me neither. But I got a refresher on the topic last week from Avila Therapeutics, a Waltham, MA-based startup that thinks this chemistry is crucial to creating a new class of more effective drugs. Avila has kept a pretty low profile … Continue reading “Avila Comes Out of Stealth to Talk Bonds, Covalent Bonds”

India’s Innovation Front Lines, Part 2: Of Industry-Targeted Degrees, Water, and Spinoffs

Chandigarh, Sunday, December 7—I drove straight north from Delhi to Chandigarh about 300 km, on a much improved four-lane highway. Chandigarh is a planned city that was designed by the French architect Le Corbusier in the late 1950s. It remains a delightfully livable city that the rest of India has failed to emulate. I am … Continue reading “India’s Innovation Front Lines, Part 2: Of Industry-Targeted Degrees, Water, and Spinoffs”

GamerDNA’s New Discovery Engine Helps Gamers Find More Games They’ll Love

There’s a startup in Cambridge, MA, that’s quietly collecting gigabytes of data about the likes, dislikes, habits, and exploits of hard-core gamers. Given how lucrative console and online gaming have become—bringing in $1.3 billion for U.S. publishers in October alone, up 18 percent from the same month last year—you might guess that the startup intends … Continue reading “GamerDNA’s New Discovery Engine Helps Gamers Find More Games They’ll Love”

Biofuels Maker Verenium Gets Nasdaq Delisting Notice

Verenium said late today it has fallen out of compliance for companies listed on the Nasdaq Global Market. The Cambridge-based developer of cellulosic ethanol disclosed in a regulatory filing late today that Nasdaq requires listed companies to maintain a market capitalization of at least $50 million or total assets and total revenue of $50 million each in the … Continue reading “Biofuels Maker Verenium Gets Nasdaq Delisting Notice”

Ariad Directors Resign En Masse, Accuse CEO of “Grossly Inappropriate” Behavior

A boardroom dispute at Cambridge, MA-based Ariad Pharmaceuticals exploded into public late today. Four of the biotech company’s nine directors quit over “vigorous disagreements” with CEO Harvey Berger, accusing him of “grossly inappropriate” and “manipulative” conduct in pushing through a merger with a gene therapy operation, according to a filing today with the Securities and … Continue reading “Ariad Directors Resign En Masse, Accuse CEO of “Grossly Inappropriate” Behavior”

Coskata Collects $40M from Blackstone, ATV, Globespan, Greatpoint

Coskata, the Warrenville, IL, cellulosic ethanol startup that debuted with a bang at the Detroit Auto Show last January, has raised $40 million in additional capital in a Series C round led by the Blackstone Group’s new Cleantech Venture Fund, according to a report yesterday by Dan Primack at Private Equity Hub. The private equity … Continue reading “Coskata Collects $40M from Blackstone, ATV, Globespan, Greatpoint”

Speak & Spell: New Apps Turn Phones into Multimedia Search Appliances

About five years ago, in a previous life at another technology publication, I wrote that I wished I could “Google my sock drawer.” I was being facetious, but my point was that searching the Web had become so easy that it left me yearning for equally convenient ways to search other things, like the books … Continue reading “Speak & Spell: New Apps Turn Phones into Multimedia Search Appliances”

InVivo CEO Overcame Spinal Cord Injury, Now Aims to Create Better Treatment For Same Problem

Frank Reynolds, the CEO of Cambridge, MA-based InVivo Therapeutics, says he still feels pain in his lower back when he steps off a curb. The pain stems from the spinal cord injury Reynolds suffered in an auto accident in 1992. It’s no coincidence that today he is running a medical technology firm with an implant … Continue reading “InVivo CEO Overcame Spinal Cord Injury, Now Aims to Create Better Treatment For Same Problem”

EMC Secures Microsoft Alliance, Polaris Backs Infinite Power Solutions, ExtendMedia Extends its Balance Sheet by $10M, & More Boston-Area Deals News

Nope, it’s not Monday again already. We just moved the Boston deals roundup from Monday to Friday to make room for the brand-new San Diego deals roundup. So Boston readers are getting a bonus roundup this week. It’s a good thing, too–there’s much to discuss: —Oak Investment Partners of Westport, CT and Palo Alto, CA … Continue reading “EMC Secures Microsoft Alliance, Polaris Backs Infinite Power Solutions, ExtendMedia Extends its Balance Sheet by $10M, & More Boston-Area Deals News”

Dispatch from India’s Innovation Front Lines

Editor’s note: Xconomist Vinit Nijhawan is in India visiting venture capitalists and startups with an eye to bridging Boston and Indian startup ecosystems. This is the first in a series of dispatches. New Delhi, Thursday, December 4—I arrived in Delhi near midnight off a packed flight and to a crowded international airport, no sign of … Continue reading “Dispatch from India’s Innovation Front Lines”

NitroMed Gets Buyout Offer

Lexington, MA-based drug maker NitroMed (NASDAQ:[[ticker:NTMD]]) says it has received an unsolicited bid from investment group Deerfield Management—which already owns about 12 percent of NitroMed’s stock—to acquire NitroMed for 50 cents per share in cash, a 40-percent premium on its closing price today of 30 cents per share. The company says it’s evaluating the offer. … Continue reading “NitroMed Gets Buyout Offer”