Indiana BioCrossroads Fund Invests $73M; Part goes to Life Sciences
The Indiana Future Fund, a $73 million “fund of funds,” has invested a portion of its funds in four life sciences venture capital firms with offices in Indiana. The funds from this round are intended to be invested in Indiana-based life sciences companies.
The parties did not disclose the specific amount of the investment.
The Future Fund made the investments in REI, a joint venture of Rose-Hulman Ventures and EDF Ventures, both of which have offices in Terre Haute, Ind.; Pearl Street Venture Funds; A.M. Pappas & Associates; and Burrill & Company.
The Indiana Future Fund was assembled by BioCrossroads, an organization to promote life sciences investment in Indiana, and includes investments from the state’s pension funds, Eli Lilly, Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield; Indiana University, Indiana University Foundation, Purdue University, Ball State University Foundation; American United Life Insurance Company, Indiana State University Foundation and Guidant Corporation.
BioCrossroads, a public-private consortium of life science institutions from central Indiana, in February established a protein center of excellence, called the Indiana Centers for Applied Protein Sciences, that is headed up by James Ludwig, head of proteomics programs at Lilly (see PM 2-20-04).
Frost & Sullivan: Life Science Mass Spec Market Will Reach $1.4B by 2010
Market research firm Frost & Sullivan this week released a report entitled “World Life Science Mass Spectrometry Markets,” which estimated last year’s life science mass spec revenues at a total of $880 million, and predicted that this number would reach $1.4 billion by 2010.
The report pointed to the growth of proteomics, metabolomics, and pharmacokinetics as driving factors for the market, and said that academic institutes channeling more funds into the purchase of mass spec equipment were becoming of greater importance in helping the market to grow.
BioTrove Takes in $13.7M in Financing
Woburn, Mass.-based biochip maker BioTrove announced this week that it had completed a $13.7 million financing round with the close of a $2.8 million second traunch.
Leading the round was Catalyst Health and Technology Partners, with other investors including Echelon Ventures, Fletcher Spaght, CB Health Ventures, Zero Stage Capital, and BioFrontier Partners.
The company will use the funds to accelerate commercialization of its Living Chip and Momentum Assay Development and Screening platforms, and to build a new 10,000 square-foot manufacturing facility.
CombiMatrix collects $13.6M From Direct Share Offering
Acacia Research closed a three-million share offering of common stock in its CombiMatrix life sciences unit, the Newport Beach, Calif.-based company announced this week.
The registered direct offering was to a group of undisclosed institutional investors. The offering was priced at $5 a share, the company said, discounted against the CombiMatrix closing price of $5.53 on Tues., April 13. The offering is expected to raise some $13.6 million for Acacia's Mulkiteo, Wash., subsidiary that is commercializing a microarray technology platform.
The announcement follows CombiMatrix's move from listing on Nasdaq's small-cap market to its big board in March, joining Acacia's other division, Acacia Research/Acacia Technologies, which began trading on the Nasdaq Exchange in December 2002.