David Spenciner's blog
Life science-focused venture capital funds fared pretty well last year, at least compared with the VC industry as a whole.
At the end of 2009, I summarized the fundraising atmosphere for venture capital raising funds that invest in the life sciences. Now data is out for VC as a whole:
"2009 can officially go on record as the lousiest year since 1993 (in terms of number of funds raised) or 2003 (in terms of dollars committed)."
So how did my sub-set of funds that at least partially invest in the life sciences compare with the entire group?
A look back at medical device-focused VC fund activity during 2009.
Over the past year, I've described the dismal state of VC and the problems this industry has had raising new funds. Certainly, these issues have been widely reported and discussed elsewhere.
Trends in mechanical testing apparatus for biomechanical applications.
I sat down with Theresa Smith, district sales manager for Instron at the recent North American Spine Society meeting to talk about what trends she sees for the mechanical testing apparatus industry, specific to medical device applications. Instron is a manufacturer of mechanical testing equipment and has a variety of types, from ball screw-driven for plain tensile or compression tests to servohydraulic and electrodynamic for fatigue or fracture toughness tests.
The state of innovation within the orthopedics industry, according to independent testing labs.
What can the independent test labs tell us about the state of innovation within the orthopedics industry? Quite a lot, because these vendors to medical device designers and manufacturers generally only test devices that have not yet come hit the market. I spoke with representatives of six bio-mechanical test labs across the U.S., hoping to tease out trends for what types of medical devices are being tested more as well as the geographic location of these innovators:
The Natick, Mass.-based vertebroplasty firm reveals its technology at the 24th annual meeting of the North American Spine Society in San Francisco.
Soteira Inc. emerged from stealth mode at the 24th annual meeting of the North American Spine Society.
CEO Larry Jasinski and other representatives of the Natick, Mass.-based spine start-up showed a video describing their vertebroplasty system to conference attendees and publically parted with a few details of their technology:
- Soteira has a cement-directing kyphoplasty system that uses a flexible cutting implement to make a central cavity in the vertebral body and then a stent-like flexible barrier to partially restrict the flow of bone cement.
Yet another defunct orthopedic device developer is acquired. Where does that leave the rest of the field?
First it was Integra picking up IST's IP for a cool $9 million. Then Synovis bought out Pegasus Biologics for horse feed ($12.1 million). And Cardo Medical did the same with Vertebron, for a bargain-basement price of $1.3 million.
Now a similar deal has gone through, with Facet Solutions buying Archus Orthopedics' IP.
Maybe, now that alternatives to treating venture capital the same as hedge funds are proposed in Washington.
There's been a flurry of activity in the wake of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's proposal to treat venture capital firms the same as hedge funds, by making them register as investment advisors with the SEC (see my original post).
The National Venture Capital Assn. response seems to be taking three forms: Reject new regulations, eliminate new requirements for smaller VC firms and limit additional information required by the SEC.
