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DEALS

The Deals That Didn’t Get Done

Charles River’s WuXi acquisition is axed and Trius fails to debut.

MARIE DAGHLAIN


The biggest deals news of the week were the deals that didn’t happen. Charles River Laboratories called off its $1.6 billion deal to buy WuXi PharmaTech due to investor opposition led by Jana Partners, its largest shareholder (see story). And, two life sciences companies failed to complete their expected initial public offerings, as investors showed little interest in unprofitable companies.

Memphis, Tennessee-based SurgiVision, which is developing a medical device to be used in brain surgery, postponed its IPO after cutting its size by 40 percent. San Diego-based Trius Therapeutics is about to initiate a late-stage trial of its lead therapeutic, a new class of antibiotics. The company, which hopes to raise up to $84 million, expected to launch on July 29, but failed to price.

The situation seems to be somewhat better in the private markets. Devicor Medical Products Group, a Wisconsin-based medical device holding company, raised $151.5 million from seven unnamed investors according to a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing. Devicon was established in late 2008 by GTCR Golder Rauner, a Chicago private equity firm that has extensive health-related investments that invested $250 million in the company. Devicon Medical made its first acquisition two weeks previously, buying the breast-care business of Johnson & Johnson’s Ethicon Endo-Surgery, a top player in vacuum-assisted breast biopsy, for an undisclosed amount and renaming it Mammotome.

Texas biofuels company KiOR has raised $110 from 13 investors, according to an amended SEC filing. KiOR was started in 2007 as a joint venture between Khosla Ventures and BIOeCON, a dutch biofuels startup. The company is developing and commercializing Biomass Catalytic Cracking technology that can convert any type of biomass into a high quality bio-crude that is suitable for refining directly to standard transportation fuels.

Cerenis Therapeutics raised $51.7 million in the first close of its series C financing, with half of it coming from the French Fund for Strategic Investment and the other half from existing investors Sofinnova Partners, HealthCap, Alta Partners and TVM Capital, EDF Ventures, OrbiMed and DAIWA Corporate Investment.

Based in Toulouse, France and Ann Arbor, Michigan, Cerenis specializes in the research and development of novel therapies based on the metabolism of HDL—good cholesterol—to treat cardiovascular and other metabolic diseases. The money will be used to fund a mid-stage trial of its lead program, an HDL-mimetic for the treatment of cardiovascular disease and to support the development of other new HDL therapies.

Seattle-based vaccine developer Immune Design secured $32 million in a series B financing that was led by ProQuest Investments with participation by current investors The Column Group, Versant Ventures, and Alta Partners. Immune Design’s cancer vaccine pipeline uses two proprietary technologies: GLA, a novel, synthetic, toll-like receptor 4 agonist, which is a clinical stage adjuvant being developed as a component in multiple internal and partnered vaccine programs; and DC-NILV, a novel delivery vector engineered to target human dendritic cells to elicit functional and broad based immunity.


DEALS FOR THE WEEK ENDING JULY 30, 2010
Company Location Amount Raised (USD M)
Principal Focus
Devicor Medical Products Pleasant Prairie, WI 151.5 Medical devices
Kior Pasadena, TX 110.0 Industrial/Ag
Cerenis Therapeutics Ann Arbor, MI and Toulouse, France 51.6 Cardiovascular therapeutics
Immune Design  Seattle, WA 32.0 Vaccines
Ceres  Thousand Oaks, CA 20.0 Industrial/Ag
SuperDimension Plymouth, MN 9.8 Lung cancer diagnostics
Nitric BioTherapeutics Bristol, PA 6.0 Infectious disease therapeutics
HemaQuest Pharmaceuticals Seattle, WA 4.0 Genetic disease therapeutics
Total Living Choices Seattle, WA 3.5 Digital health
Great Lakes Pharmaceuticals Cleveland, OH 3.1 Medical devices
Ambicare Health Limited United Kingdom 2.7 Tools/Technology
TOTAL RAISED US 391.5
TOTAL RAISED NON-US 2.7
Grants and Contracts
Company
Funding/Contracting Agency
Amount Raised (USD M)
Principal Focus
Cerenis Therapeutics (US and France) OSEO 7.0 Cardiovascular therapeutics
Groupe Novasep (France) OSEO 6.9 Bioprocessing
Cytokinetics NIH NINDS 2.9 Neurology therapeutics
Akonni Biosystems NIH NIBIB 0.4 Infectious disease diagnostics
Titan Pharmaceuticals NIH SBIR 0.5 Neurology therapeutics
Novomer US Department of Energy 18.4 Bioplastics
Mediomics NIH STTR Phase II  0.5 Biosensors
Sernova (Canada) Canada's NRC-IRAP 0.5 Medical devices
Lpath National Eye Institute BRDG-SPAN 3.0 Eye therapeutics
Cleveland Biolabs HHS BARDA contract 4.1 Radiation side effects
Total Grants and Contracts 44.2
PUBLIC FINANCINGS
Company
Ticker
Amount
Raised (USD M)

Financing Type
MolMed (Italy) Milan:MLM 73.2 PIPE
ReGen Therapeutics (UK) LSE:RGT 0.1 PIPE
Cell Therapeutics CTIC 4.1 PIPE
Response Biomedical (Canada) TSX:RBM 7.7 PIPE
ALDA Pharmaceuticals (Canada) TSX-V:APH 0.3 PIPE
Uroplasty UPI 16.1 Follow on
Gilead Sciences GILD 2,200.0 Debt
Mylan MYL 300.0 Debt
Agennix (Germany) Xetra:AGX 19.4 Debt financing
Xoma  XOMA 30.0 CEFF
Omeros OMER 40.0 CEFF
NewCardio OTC:NWCI 1.5 Credit facility
TOTAL PUBLIC FINANCINGS-US 2,591.7
                                     NON-US 100.7
M&A 
Acquirer
Target
Deal Value
(USD M)

Focus
Illumina Helixis 105.0 Sequencing
Iris International AlliedPath 6.0 CLIA laboratory
Marina Biotech Novosom (Germany) 5.0 RNA delivery
Celestica (Canada) Allied Panels (Austria) N/A Medical devices
Axela Xceed Molecular (Canada) N/A Genomics
Jade Pharmaceuticals (Radient Pharmaceuticals) Shanxi BaoTai Pharmaceutical (China) N/A Cancer products
Kangmei Pharmaceutical (China) Sichuan Tengwangge Pharmaceutical and Sichuan Baoning Pharmaceutical Traditional Chinese Medicines
Pharmachem Laboratories Forbes Medi-Tech (Canada) N/A Nutraceuticals
Royal Philips Electronics (Netherlands) Shanghai Apex Electronics (China) N/A Ultrasound
Alliances 
Company/Licensee Company/Licenser Deal Value
(USD M)
Focus
Astellas Pharma (Japan) Regeneron Pharmaceuticals 295.0 Antibody technology license
Eco-Frontier (Korea) PetroAlgae N/A Biocrude off-take agreement
Merck Sinopharm Pharmaceutical (China) N/A Vaccines joint venture
Seambiotic (Israel) Rosetta Green (Israel) N/A Renewable fuels collaboration
Nestle (Switzerland) EnWave (Canada) N/A Technology R&D agreement
PPD Microsoft N/A Technology partnership
Genentech (Roche-Switzerland) NovImmune (Switzerland) N/A Inflammatory compound license
LabCorp Merck N/A Companion diagnostics license
Siena Biotech (Italy) Aptuit N/A Drug development partnership
Novartis (Switzerland) Pathwork Diagnostics N/A Cancer biomarker collaboration

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