Monday, July 23, 2007

Biomed Notebook

Slime battles, funding figures and moving boxes

By Ryan McBride

Kill bacteria on medical devices before it kills patients. It's a concept that would likely appeal to both investors and anyone walking around with an implant in their body.

And it's one reason commercial interests have been following recent news that scientists from MIT and Boston University have engineered a virus that could be used to remove dangerous bacterial films from medical devices.

Timothy Lu, a researcher on the project, said that corporate concerns have been knocking on the doors at MIT since research he co-wrote was published in the July 3 edition of the academic journal "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences."

"We've been talking to a few companies," said Lu, a doctoral student in the Harvard-MIT division of health sciences and technology, who declined to identify the interested companies. "We got some early feelers so far, so we are in discussions."

Lu and James Collins, a professor of biomedical engineering at BU, have designed viruses known as bacteriophages (or phages) that terminate certain bacteria and the so-called biofilms (or slime) that encase them. The researchers believe the viruses, which have now been used to kill E. coli in lab samples, could be used to croak bacteria in food-processing machines as well as medical catheters and devices implanted in humans.

Lu said the "Holy Grail" of uses for such viruses would be to remove bacterial plaque from artificial heart valves. Such plaques can break off the valves into the bloodstream and cause lethal clots, he said.

Still, years of testing and clinical trials would be required to gain approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to sell the bacteriophage for use in humans, Lu said. And the researchers believe the technology would face a less-onerous path to market as a weapon against bacteria in industrial food processors.

In any case, it appears MIT and BU have some hot intellectual property to hawk.

BioRelix, by the numbers

On the financial front, a Series A venture financing round for New Haven, Conn.-based biotech startup BioRelix Inc. -- which was reported last month to be worth $25.8 million -- may have shaken out differently than it was touted in public.

A quick check of documents filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission showed said the VC investors in the round -- CHL Medical Partners, Novartis Venture Fund, Elm Street Ventures, New Leaf Venture Partners, Aisling Capital and Alexandria Real Estate Equities ­-- actually sunk $12 million into the company.

So far, the company hasn't responded to requests for a clarification, so it's unclear if its investors intend to put in an additional $13.8 million, for a total of $25.8 million. The paperwork for the round was filed on June 14, almost a week after the June 8 press release crossed the wires.

Ronald Lennox, acting CEO of BioRelix and a partner at CHL Medical Partners, the Stamford, Conn.-based VC firm that led the round, did not respond to interview requests to discuss the difference in figures. Steven Delco, a Wall Street analyst and co-founder of BioRelix, who is no longer involved in the day-to-day operations of BioRelix, said the figures in the SEC filing sounded accurate.

Yet Delco was more interested in talking about BioRelix's technology, which he claimed was worthy of "a Nobel Prize" for the firm's scientific founder, Yale University professor Ronald Breaker.

BioRelix's technology would use the power of RNA to fight bacterial infections, according to the startup. Its patented RiboSwitches, which are short strands of messenger RNA, are believed to control genes that determine the survival of certain microbes.

As for the money, we'll just have to stay tuned.

Going to Lexington

Back in the Bay State, medical devices firm Tepha Inc. in June moved its headquarters from biotech-rich Cambridge to suburban digs in Lexington, said Ajay Ahuja, director of business development at Tepha.

Tepha, a developer of biopolymers for use in tissue repair, jumped ship from its nine-year home of Cambridge on the heels of a $10.7 million financing to fund further development of its technology.