Life sciences briefing: Wednesday, Feb. 6, 2008

TODAY’S HEADLINES:

• H-P “great-grandchild” Alverix raises $7.7M for portable diagnostic devices (release)
• Moksha8 takes in $39M to commercialize drugs for Asia (peHUB)
• Dynogen Pharma goes public, gets $98M in reverse merger (release)
• EKR Thera raises funds, pays up to $170M to “reacquire” PDL BioPharma drug (release))
• R4 Vascular receives $4.4M for vascular-access devices (VentureWire)
• Medical tube and syringe maker Amsino Medical sells stake to Baring PE Asia (release)
• Implantable-diagnostic maker Transoma Medical postpones IPO (IPOhome)

H-P “great-grandchild” Alverix raises $7.7M for portable diagnostic devices — I’ve moved this item to a standalone post here.

EKR Thera raises funds, pays up to $170M to “reacquire” PDL BioPharma drug — This item is now a standalone post here.

Moksha8 takes in $39M to commercialize drugs for Asia — Moksha8, a stealthy San Francisco drug developer that commercializes “high-value” therapies for Asia and other markets, raised a combined $39 million in first and second funding rounds, peHUB reports, citing regulatory filings. TPG Biotech provided the $24 million first round, and was joined by Lit Tele of Brazil in a $15 million second round.

Actually, I call Moksha8 a San Francisco company because peHUB does, but I have my doubts. The company’s stub of a Web site lists offices in Hong Kong, SF, Philadelphia and London, and provides Hong Kong and Philadelphia-area phone numbers as its main points of contact. The company’s name, by the way, appears to be a reference to the Hindu term for liberation from the cycle of reincarnation. One more observation from the Web site: Moksha8’s “other markets” are likely in Central and South America, which is the only region besides Asia highlighted on a global-map background image there.

Dynogen Pharma goes public, gets $98M in reverse merger — Dynogen Pharmaceuticals, a Waltham, Mass., specialty pharma focused on gastrointestinal disease, went public in a reverse merger with Apex Bioventures Acquisition, a “specialty acquisition” corporation. Such entities are formed by investors specifically to acquire private companies, and frequently — as in this case — raise funds for later acquisitions via an IPO.

Dynogen shareholders will receive $98 million in Apex stock, and are eligible for two additional milestone-related payments of $23 million apiece. The combined company, which will be run by Dynogen’s CEO and operate out of Dynogen’s current offices, is expected to have up to $65 million in cash by the time the deal closes.

Implantable-diagnostic maker Transoma Medical postpones IPO — Transoma Medical, a St. Paul, Minn., maker of implantable medical-diagnostic devices, postponed its planned $77.6 million IPO, IPOhome reports. The company hasn’t yet formally withdrawn the offering, although that seems a foregone conclusion at this point.

Transoma makes implantable monitoring devices, such as a wireless gadget that monitors an individual’s heartbeat and transmits the information to a data center and then to a doctor’s office. Our previous coverage of Transoma is here and here; we’ve also written about startups working on similar devices, such as CardioMEMS and its implantable wireless sensors for measuring blood pressure, heart function and heart rate, here.