Five Deals Account For 38% Of Health Care Venture Capital Raised In October (October 18, 2006)

Nearly 38% of the health care venture capital raised during October 2006 is accounted for by the five largest deals of the month. Prism Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a specialty pharmaceutical company committed to developing and commercializing acute care cardiovascular products, announced a $68 million financing commitment from Paul Capital and Essex Woodlands Health Ventures. Upon closing of the transaction, Prism secured proceeds of $23 million, with the remainder to be funded upon completion of certain milestones, to be used for ongoing development and commercialization initiatives. Amicus Therapeutics raised $60 million in Series D financing, the proceeds to be used for the advancement its pipeline of potential new treatments for certain lysosomal storage disorders. New and existing investors contributed to the round, including New Enterprise Associates, Canaan Partners, CHL Medical Partners, Frazier Healthcare Ventures, Palo Alto Investors, Prospect Venture Partners, Quaker BioVentures and Radius Ventures. Amicus, a biopharmaceutical company that withdrew its IPO about six weeks earlier, is developing small molecule, orally-administered pharmacological chaperones for treating human genetic diseases. Another biopharma, Athenagen, Inc., closed its Series B financing with $50 million to support ongoing clinical efforts to collect Phase II efficacy data on its non-invasive eye drop therapy for age-related macular degeneration, Phase I/II proof-of-concept data on its program in Alzheimer’s patients and Phase II efficacy data on another product candidate in multiple cognitive disorders. Clarus Ventures, Index Ventures, Charter Life Sciences and Astellas Venture Management invested in Athenagen. NovaCardia also announced the completion of a Series B financing, which totaled $48 million from investors led by Skyline Ventures and including InterWest Partners, Domain Associates, Forward Ventures, Montreux Equity Partners, Versant Ventures. NovaCardia will use the proceeds from this financing to continue the clinical development of its lead product candidate, which is currently in Phase III clinical trials in patients with congestive heart failure undergoing diuresis, and other compounds intended for cardiovascular indications. Massachusetts-based RenaMed Biologics, Inc., a clinical-stage biotechnology company focused on the development of proprietary therapies for critical disease states involving compromised kidney function, announced the fifth-largest health care venture capital round in October, with $40 million from TVM Capital, Lurie Investments, MDS Capital, Merlin BioMed Group, Dow Employees’ Pension Plan, TSC Venture Capital and other investors. The proceeds will be used for clinical development. RenaMed has a Renal Bio-Replacement therapy that is administered ex vivo using physiologically active human renal epithelial cells incorporated in a hollow-fiber dialysis cartridge.

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