Archives for May 2007
Axxora Deal Boosts Enzo’s International Distribution
Enzo Biochem, of New York, NY, said yesterday that it would buy Axxora Life Sciences, a private company based in San Diego that makes life sciences research products, for $16.3 million in cash. Once the deal goes through, Axxora will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Enzo’s Enzo Life Sciences subsidiary, which makes labeling and detection products for gene sequencing and genetic analysis. Axxora’s senior management team, including heads of all business units, will stay on board after the acquisition.
Axxora, which had revenues of approximately $16 million and 60 employees in 2006, develops, manufactures and distributes reagents addressing immunological and cellular research and the biochemical industries. Enzo posted a loss of $15.7 million on revenue of $39.8 million in 2006, and will look to the Axxora acquisition to bolster its international distribution capabilities. Axxora’s two main divisions — ALEXIS Biochemicals and Apotech – are based
Telemedicine Addresses Rising Healthcare Costs
A recent article in The New York Times discusses TeleStroke, a telemedicine program being offered by Brigham and Women’s and Massachusetts General Hospitals in Boston. The program is designed to help hospitals that do not have the resources to employ expensive stroke specialists and as a result, are not equipped to make decisions about administering the effective but high-risk standard-of-care medicine for stroke, tPA.
Through TeleStroke, stroke specialists can examine and diagnose patients remotely via videoconferencing and image-sharing technology. Hospitals pay an annual fee ($10,000 in the case of Martha’s Vineyard Hospital, the focus of the Times piece) for 24-hour virtual access to stroke specialists. The fee is miniscule in comparison to keeping on staff highly trained physicians who command steep salaries.
Telemedicine companies are popping up everywhere. Earlier this month, at the American Telemedicine Association’s annual meeting, more than 300 presentations took place on
FDA Green Lights Harvest’s Stem Cell Trial
Harvest Technologies, a Plymouth, MA, company that uses stem cells from bone marrow to treat critical limb ischemia, received the go-ahead yesterday from FDA to start a 48-patient trial for the company’s Bone Marrow Aspirate Concentrate (BMAC) System. If all goes as planned, Harvest expects the device to hit the market sometime in 2010.
The BMAC System concentrates a patient’s bone-marrow stem cells in approximately 15 minutes, then injects them into the affected limb to reduce the likelihood of amputation. Critical limb ischemia is a late-stage form of Peripheral Arterial Disease, which involves clogged arteries — commonly in the legs — that can result in toe or feet amputation. The thinking behind the BMAC device is that the injection of stem cells will arrest and possibly reverse the effects of critical limb ischemia.
In a European pilot study of BMAC, 23 patients
Next-Generation Psych Treatments
An article published yesterday in Technology Review discusses two new technologies being developed to improve psychiatric treatment.
The first, from Norwood, MA-based Aspect Medical Systems, is a device that predicts whether an antidepressant is taking effect, after just one week. Typically, patients have to wait several weeks or months for psych meds to start working. But previous research has shown that despite this delay in patient response, brain-activity — measured via electroencephalogram (EEG) — can happen after a week.
Aspect’s device, which requires only five electrodes to be placed on the patient’s head, incorporates EEG technology. It’s currently undergoing trials and so far producing positive results: At the American Psychiatric Association meeting held last week in San Diego, Aspect reported that 70-80% of the time, after one week of treatment, the device could predict if the drug would work in the longer term.
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BioElectronics Expands International Distribution
BioElectronics, a Frederick, MD, company that makes anti-inflammatory patches, signed a deal last week with Eximeq for the Mexican healthcare-services provider to distribute BioElectronics’ ActiPatch south of the border. ActiPatch delivers pulsed electromagnetic frequency (PEMF) to accelerate healing of soft tissue injuries. PEMF has been shown to reduce pain and swelling by lessening the body’s inflammatory response. ActiPatch is FDA cleared for the treatment of edema following blepharoplasty.
BioElectronics has been busy lately ramping up sales and marketing activity. Prior to announcing the Eximeq deal, the company secured distribution agreements with partners in New York, Philadelphia and Canada.
Endocare Raises $7 Million
Endocare, an Irvine, CA-based company focused on tissue and tumor ablation, has raised $7 million in a private placement of common stock to Seattle-based Frazier Healthcare Ventures. In a statement, Endocare CEO Craig Davenport said the money will go toward the company’s development efforts in prostate and renal cancer cryoablation, and toward expanding its presence in the interventional radiology and oncology markets for lung and liver cancer, and in treating pain associated with metastases.
Endocare’s minimally invasive cryoablation procedures enable physicians to destroy tumors while leaving surrounding tissue intact. A recent study demonstrated that cryoablation as a first-line treatment for prostate cancer can be equally or more effective than radical prostatectomy or brachytherapy and eliminates the potentially toxic side effects of radioactive seeds; it’s also a lower-cost alternative to brachytherapy and radical surgery. CEO Davenport explains Endocare’s cryoablation technology and the company’s overall
New Device Outpaces Competition in Epilepsy Market
A new device for epilepsy patients being developed by Mountain View, CA-based NeuroPace was featured this week in Technology Review. The company’s responsive neurostimulation (RNS) system is designed to help epilepsy patients who are unresponsive to drugs. NeuroPace estimates that about 2.5 million Americas are affected by epilepsy, and roughly 40-50% of those are either unresponsive to medications or experience intolerable side effects.
Implanted in the skull, the RNS device detects abnormal electrical activity in the brain and responds by delivering electrical stimulation to normalize brain activity before the patient experiences seizure symptoms.
“The idea is to stop the seizure before it occurs,” NeuroPace CEO Frank Fischer tells Technology Review.
The article points out that privately held NeuroPace is not the first company to experiment with using electricity to treat neurological disorders. Cyberonics‘ Vagus Nerve Stimulator, for example, is implanted under the skin near the
Regional Group Supports Pittsburgh Startup
Pittsburgh Life Sciences Greenhouse, an organization that invests in up-and-coming biosciences companies in Southwestern Pennsylvania, has committed $150,000 to Celsense, a local company that was founded in 2005 to commercialize imaging platforms licensed from Carnegie Mellon University.
The privately held company will put the money toward bringing to market is flagship product, Cell Sense, an MRI tracer agent that labels cells in culture. When labeled cells are transferred to a living subject, the transplanted cells can be imaged in their anatomical context using MRI. It’s used to track, in real-time, the delivery, migration, duration and quantity of transplanted cells in vivo; this has the potential to speed up development of new therapies for a variety of diseases.
Celsense’s most recent financing, a Series A of $625,000, took place in April 2006. According to the company, the intent was to raise $500,000, but
Chembio to Develop Tests for Leishmaniasis and Leprosy
Chembio Diagnostic Systems, of Medford, NY, is teaming up with the Infectious Disease Research Institute (IDRI) to develop rapid diagnostic tests for two neglected diseases, Leishmaniasis and Leprosy. Chembio will develop the tests using its Dual Path Platform (DPP) technology, for which it was awarded a U.S. patent in March, and incorporating IDRI proprietary antigens. A partnership seemed logical after the DPP technology demonstrated superior sensitivity on samples from patients with these diseases, in preliminary studies conducted during the first quarter of 2007.
Chembio’s main focus until now has been rapid tests for HIV. But the company believes DPP, which is thought to offer significant advantages over single-path tests, has applications well beyond HIV, for additional infectious and other diseases. For more on how DPP works, watch this video.
The joint R&D efforts with IDRI will be partially paid for by the
Inovio’s Delivery Technology Boosts Cancer Vax Potency
Data released yesterday from a study of an experimental prostate cancer vaccine showed that Inovio Biomedical’s delivery system significantly enhanced the vaccine’s potency. In the Phase I/II study, some patients received the vaccine through Inovio’s electroporation technology, which uses brief, controlled electrical pulses to increase cellular uptake of gene expression in DNA-based treatments; this enhances the potency of DNA-based immunotherapies against cancers and infectious diseases. Patients who received the prostate cancer vaccine the Inovio way demonstrated safety, tolerability and significantly higher antibody responses than those who were treated without it.
Inovio, which is actively licensing its electroporation technology to pharmaceutical companies, including Wyeth and Merck, also is moving forward with commercializing its Selective Electrochemical Tumor Ablation (SECTA) therapy. SECTA is designed to selectively kill cancerous cells and minimize cosmetic or functional detriments often caused by surgical removal of the healthy tissue
