Thirteen years ago Greg Altman, president and CEO of Serica Technologies Inc., blew out his knee playing football. After reconstructive surgery on his ruptured anterior cruciate ligament, the former All-American at Tufts University found the rehabilitation process so challenging that he set out to develop an alternative.
Biotech
Tengion plans $40 million IPO
Joining what is quickly becoming a mini-stampede toward the public markets, a suburban Philadelphia biotech unveiled plans for an initial public offering of stock.
The company, Tengion Inc. of East Norriton, Pa., is working to commercialize a process that coaxes the body into producing its own replacement organs. Early testing has demonstrated some success rebuilding bladder tissue in children with spina bifida and Tengion officials are now hoping that those encouraging results will attract sufficient market support to finance additional clinical trials.
ProChon Biotech expands Biocart clinical trial
ProChon Biotech Ltd. expanded a clinical trial of its Biocart knee cartilage regeneration system from one medical center to 10, a move that CEO Patrick O’Donnell told MassDevice puts ProChon on track to bring the technology to market in the U.S. and the European Union in 2014.
O’Donnell, who heads up a new management team that took over in January, said the expansion will also help raise the profile of a company that’s largely flown under the radar until now.
UPDATE: Advanced BioHealing launches Dermagraft trial
From snip, snip to step, step in only a few months.
Advanced BioHealing Inc. launched a Phase III clinical trial of its Dermagraft bio-engineered skin substitute in patients with venous leg ulcers.
The Westport, Conn.-based tissue regeneration company said the Dermagraft is designed to help restore damaged tissue and support the body’s natural healing process. The Food & Drug Administration already cleared the product to treat diabetic foot ulcers; ABH said more than 1,000 wound care and outpatient clinics in the U.S. use it.
Cardium swings to Q3 profits
Cardium Therapeutics posted third-quarter sales of $236,000 for the three months ended Sept. 30, compared with no sales during the same period last year, and swung from a $6.2 million net loss during Q3 2008 to net income of $4.9 million:
Press Release
Cardium Reports on Third Quarter 2009 Financial Results and Recent Developments
Osteotech’s Q3 sales slide as it logs some red ink
Osteotech Inc. posted third-quarter sales of $23 million for the three months ended Sept. 30, down 4.6 percent compared with $24.1 million during the same period last year. Net losses for the quarter were $1.9 million, compared with net income of $58,000 during Q3 2008:
Press Release
Osteotech Reports Third Quarter 2009 Financial Results
Company Achieves Sequential and Year-Over-Year U.S. Sales Growth In Base Business
2009 Guidance Updated
ProChon Biotech taps Swiss firm to make cartilage growth factor
ProChon Biotech Ltd. inked a deal to have Swiss firm Lonza manufacture a key element of its BioCart knee repair system.
Lonza will make Woburn, Mass.-based ProChon’s proprietary fibroblast growth factor variant at its Hopkinton, Mass., plant. The BioCart system, which cultures a healthy sample of knee cartilage and implants it back into the damaged knee, uses the FGF2v product to stimulate cartilage growth on an implant scaffold.
European biotech firm Biocell opens U.S. HQ in Medford, Mass.
Biocell Center Corp., the European biotech firm that pioneered a method of preserving amniotic stem cells, opened its U.S. headquarters in Medford, Mass.
Biocell CEO Kate Torchilin said the company can preserve a portion of the sample taken during amniocentesis on pregnant women, which contains stem cells that can be used to treat illness or regenerate tissue.
Harvest Technologies wins FDA approval for clinical trial
Harvest Technologies Corp. won approval from the Food & Drug Administration for a 42-patient trial of its technique to use concentrated autologous bone marrow cells to treat patients undergoing coronary artery bypass grafts.
The FDA’s investigational device exemption allows the Plymouth, Mass.-based firm to study whether its BMAC system can help re-grow dead or damaged heart tissue. The two phase feasibility trial will see a one patient group injected with the concentrated stem cells after CABG surgery and a control group treated with CABG alone.
Scenes from MIT’s EmTech Conference
As the old adage goes, it’s good to be the king, but apparently it’s not too bad being his graduate assistant either.
The Mass. Institute of Technology ended the first day of its annual Emerging Technologies Conference Sept. 22 with a keynote address by professor and inventor Robert Langer, who spoke at length about creating breakthrough medical technologies.
Helicos BioSciences raises $9.4 million in private placement
Helicos BioSciences Corp. bought itself more time by tapping some old and new friends for cash.
The Cambridge, Mass.-based maker of genetic-sequencing equipment said Wednesday it sold slightly more than 4.3 million shares of stock to a group of existing and new investors, generating $9.4 million in net proceeds after expenses.
Participating in the private placement were Atlas Ventures, Flagship Ventures and Highland Capital, all located in the Greater Boston area; Versant Ventures of Menlo Park, Calif., also bought stock in the latest offering. All four firms are longtime Helicos stakeholders, taking part in various financing packages dating back to the company’s founding in 2003.