Maryland Technology News

Virgin Media will use telegraph poles to extend the reach of FTTH (fiber-to-the-home) in a test in the UK village of Woolhampton, it said on Thursday.

Now under new management, MySpace is looking to reinvent itself and rise like a Phoenix from the ashes. The once dominant social networking site fell from nearly 70 percent of the social networking market, to only 30 percent in less than a year, and was plummeting on the verge of extinction.

Salesforce.com customers were abuzz on Twitter Thursday morning as the result of what they described as a North American outage of the cloud computing service.

CA continued its shopping spree, agreeing to buy IT management software maker Nimsoft for $350 million. 

Should a state spend $1.15 million on a Web-based portal designed to connect students, support college and career transitions?

Anthera, Ironwood and Aveo. What do these developers have in common? With their debuts, they've all proven that despite hope for a resurgence of biotech IPOs after a ghastly 2009, investors still aren't eager to invest in risky companies.

After delaying its debut two days, Aveo unloaded its initial public shares for $9, far less than the $13 to $15 range it had hoped for. That means the developer raised $81 million and has a market value of $267 million. The cancer drug company is currently in Phase III trials for tivozanib for renal cell carcinoma. It also has a Phase II program for lung cancer drug AV-299 and a host of Phase I programs. Additionally, the company has partnerships in place with Merck, OSI and others. But it has no marketed products, and, like most biotechs, has burned through oodles of cash in its existence.

Anthera went public earlier this month, pricing its shares at half of what it had originally hoped for. And when Ironwood went public in February, it ended up selling 16.7 million shares at $11.25 each--well below its $14 to $16 target. Biotech may not be in the valley of death experienced in 2009, but investors are still hesitant to part with their cash.

- read the Xconomy write-up

Related Articles:
Aveo jumps into IPO game with plans to raise $86M
Ironwood raises $188M in IPO but takes a big price cut
Anthera IPO limps out at half price

Cambridge, MA-based Genetix Pharmaceuticals has completed a $35 million Series B financing with new investors Third Rock Ventures and Genzyme Ventures joining TVM Capital, Forbion and Easton Capital. The company was founded in 1993, but in 2004 Genetix was re-started and recapitalized in a Series A investment by TVM, Forbion, and Easton, and has raised a total of $23 million in Series A and bridge funding since then. "The whole point of this financing is to (1) advance the programs in the clinic, (2) expand and broaden the platform of the company, and (3) expand the team," explained Genetix President Nick Leschly (also of Third Rock Ventures) in an interview with FierceBiotech. He said this round will give the company a cash runway of three or more years.

Genetix has two lead programs in the Phase II trials. Lenti-D is an experimental therapy for Adrenoleukodystrophy (ALD), a severe neurodegenerative disorder that affects one in 17,000 males. Its other program is Lentiglobin for beta-Thalassemia, one of the most prevalent human genetic disorders. Both therapies use Genetix's gene therapy platform to re-engineer patient's own cells to treat the rare and potentially fatal diseases. And Leschly notes that its technology is being explored for other genetic conditions. The funding will be used to immediately move both lead programs into pivotal trials.

Genetix currently has 15 employees but expects to double over the next 12 to 18 months. And it's already getting that process under way. In addition to today's financing, the company has announced that it named Mitchell Finer, Ph.D. as chief scientific officer. Finer is a former Novocell exec with years of experience in gene therapy and regenerative medicine. As Genetix news CSO, he'll help guide the company's existing programs while exploring other applications for its technology.

"The intent of the company is to create a collaborative networks with both disease foundations, academic institutions, and industry," explained Leschly. "We're in ongoing discussions with a number of folks who are interested in our programs." And with a disease-altering technology platform, you can bet Big Pharma will take notice. Leschly wouldn't give specifics on any companies that would be interested in Genetix technology, but he did point out that developers like Biomarin, GlaxoSmithKline, Shire and Novartis have all expressed interested in pursuing treatments for rare genetic diseases or severe diseases. And investor Genzyme Ventures is the VC arm of Genzyme, which has built its business on treating rare diseases.

- here's Genetix's release on the funding
- and take a look at the announcement on Finer's appointment

Related Article:
Top 20 Biotech VC Deals of 2009

Merck, IBM and Battelle have signed up to partner with GE Healthcare on a new vaccine plant that has been proposed by the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. The vaccine facility backers want to build a state-of-the-art facility that can respond on an emergency basis to bioterror attacks. Merck would contribute its drug-development expertise, with IBM handling IT and Battelle doing the pre-clinical work and research. Story

Aveo Pharmaceuticals kept the biotech investment community on pins and needles this morning. The cancer drug developer was supposed to price its shares for a $105 million IPO yesterday, but reportedly pushed that back to today in the face of shareholder resistance to the share price.

The Wall Street Journal reported the resistance at the end of a lengthy piece today on the bullish investor response to Sensata, a venture-backed company that was able to hold on to its price range and trade higher on the first day--a first for the year.

After a brief surge of hope that 2010 would see a big surge of biotech IPOs after a lengthy dry spell, the first developers to make it into the market all stumbled badly. Ironwood seriously overreached on its projected share price and Anthera raised $42 million in an IPO recently after chopping its share price in half.

- here's the report from the Wall Street Journal, with the Aveo news mentioned at the end

Related Articles:
Aveo jumps into IPO game with plans to raise $86M
Aveo grabs $20M in expanded OSI collaboration
AVEO Pharmaceuticals - Top 20 VC deals of 2007

Santa Clara, CA-based AutekBio says it has joined a pair of venture capital firms to hatch plans to invest $100 million into a new R&D and contract manufacturing operation for biologics in southern Beijing.

AutekBio signed up with SUMA Ventures and Beijing E-Town Harvest International Capital Management Corporation, a venture capital group operated by the Beijing Municipal Government, in orchestrating the research and manufacturing project. AutekBio has kept a low profile, at least in the U.S. Li's resume includes stints at Hoffmann La-Roche and Asterand. Back in 2007 the Beijing/Bay Area hybrid reported raising $1.1 million to help build its business growing cell lines for drug companies. China has become a hotbed of biopharma activity in recent years, with some of the world's biggest players making ambitious plans to develop and manufacture therapeutics in the country.

"I am extremely pleased with this joint investment. This will allow us to build one of the largest biologic CMOs in Asia," said Julius Li, the CEO of AutekBio, in a statement. "The newly established facility and company will provide, for the first time, manufacturing services in China fully conforming to the FDA,EMEA (and) cGMP standards for the global biopharmaceutical needs."

- check out the AutekBio release

Related Articles:
China's vax industry poised for rapid growth
China launches biotech VCs, new tech stock market
China gets serious about biotech

Shares of BioSante Pharmaceuticals surged this morning in pre-market trading after the developer said that a 19-patient study demonstrated the promise of its GVAX leukemia vaccine to mop up the stubbornly lingering cancer cells of CML patients taking Gleevec.

Researchers said that the 19 patients selected for the study had measurable levels of cancer cells even though they had been on Gleevec for at least a year. After a median of 17 months, 13 of the patients saw their number of cancer cells decline and seven emerged with undetectable levels. The study was financed by the NCI and handled by scientists at Johns Hopkins.

Despite the small size of the trial, lead investigator Hyam Levitsky says it demonstrates a promising potential treatment tactic: using cancer vaccines to go in after powerful cancer therapies are used to help eradicate any remaining cancer cells.

BioSante announced just two days ago that it had raised $17.5 million through a sale of 10.4 million shares to Great Point Partners LLC and Deerfield Management Company. The shares were sold for $1.73 each. Most of that money is earmarked for LibiGel, a treatment for female sexual dysfunction. Its shares were up 15 percent by mid-morning.

- check out the BioSante's release
- here's the Reuters story

Related Articles:
BioSante gets good news on LibiGel
BioSante hits pay dirt with late-stage LibiGel data
BioSante, Cell Genesys merger will provide cash for Phase III
BioSante, Cell Genesys merge in $38M deals

TAIPEI, Taiwan, March 12 /PRNewswire-Asia/ -- TaiGen Biotechnology Co., Ltd. announced today the Phase II trial of nemonoxacin (TG-873870) in Diabetic Foot Infection (DFI) with once-a-day dosing met the primary endpoints and showed promising clinical efficacy and good tolerability. Nemonoxacin is a novel non-fluorinated quinolone that has a broad spectrum of activity against gram-positive and...

ABBOTT PARK, Ill. and REDWOOD CITY, Calif., March 9 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Abbott (NYSE:ABT - News) and Facet Biotech Corporation (Nasdaq:FACT - News) announced today a definitive agreement for Abbott to acquire Facet, enhancing Abbott's early- and mid...

Neuropharm has been in discussions with a number of parties since it entered an offer period on 3 November 2009 and announced that it was pursuing a proposed sale or...