Seattle and Philadelphia Life-Science Startups Score Early-Stage Investments

Seattle's Accelerator, a biotechnology incubator, yesterday announced the founding of its fourth startup company, Homestead Clinical, which will develop blood diagnotics based on efforts originated at Lee Hood's Institute for Systems Biology.

Accelerator, with 20,000 square feet of lab and office-space facilites and a spinoff from ISB, will fund the startup with more than $2.5 million, according to an article in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

Patricia Beckmann, a former venture capitalist at Vulcan and a longtime scientist at Immunex, was named the company's chief scientific officer. Funding for the company is provided by MPM Capital, Amgen Ventures, OVP Venture Partners, Arch Venture Partners, Versant Ventures and Alexandria Real Estate Equities, investors in Accelerator.

Immune Control, a Conshohocken, Pa., startup pursuing compounds for treatment of multiple myeloma and other immunological diseases through the use of serotonin antagonists, yesterday announced the closing of a $11.3 million investment by four venture firms, led by BioAdvance Ventures, a fund managed by Quaker BioVentures in Philadelphia and Domain Associates of Princeton, NJ. The other investors are NewSpring Capital of King of Prussia, Pa., and Anthem Capital Management in Radnor, Pa.

The company is headed by Stephen Roth, founder and former CEO of Neose Technologies, and former head of biology at the University of Pennsylvania. Immune Control's efforts are based on the licensing of patents coming from research conducted by Brad Jameson of Drexel University's College of Medicine.

The Philadelpia Inquirer uses the company to examine the local life-sciences startup market in an article published today.

In the fall, a Taiwan delegation of government and business is planning to visit San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Vancouver, and Tokyo on a high-tech and science recruiting mission organized by Taiwan's ministry of economic affairs. A recent study determined that the island will suffer a total talent shortfall of 25,505 persons in the fields of semiconductors, image displays, communications, digital content, biotechnology, and information services.

Previous recruiting efforts, which included the above cities as well as Washington DC, Dallas, Chicago, and New York, resulted in the hiring of 1,155 overseas personnel to return and work in Taiwan, according to an article in a Taiwan government website.

Eight organizations yesterday announced the creation of the Brain Tumor Funders' Collaborative to support research into the treatment of brain tumors.

The eight are: the American Brain Tumor Association, Brain Tumour Foundation of Canada, Brain Tumor Society, Children’s Brain Tumor Foundation, the Goldhirsh Foundation, the James S. McDonnell Foundation, the National Brain Tumor Foundation and the Sontag Foundation.

BTFC’s goal is bridging the 'translational gap' that prevents promising laboratory findings from yielding new medical treatments.

"It is time for the new tools of genomics, proteomics, complex systems biology, and informatics to be brought to bear on the quest for new brain tumor therapeutics," Susan Fitzpatrick of the James S. McDonnell Foundation said in a statement.

The funders did not disclose how much money would be made available through this collaboration.