Oct 18, 2011

XconomySan Diego —  There’s been a flurry of funding deals among San Diego life sciences companies in recent weeks, led by AnaptysBio, a six-year-old startup that named a new executive chairman and chief business officer just last week. Here’s a rundown of recent activity: —AnaptysBio, founded in 2005 with technology to discover and optimize potent antibodies to fight disease, has raised $8 million of a targeted $22 million financing, according to a recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The financing includes equity, warrants, and securities. The company raised almost $34 million four years ago in a Series B round led by Novo A/S, a Novo Group holding company wholly owned by the Novo Nordisk Foundation. San Diego’s Avalon Ventures also was an investor, and Avalon founder Kevin Kinsella remains on the startup’s board. Other investors include Frazier Healthcare Investors, Numenor Ventures, Alloy Ventures, and WS Investment Co. —Sonexa Therapeutics, a privately-held biotech developing new drug treatments for Alzheimer’s disease and related disorders, has raised $1 million of a planned $2.5 million in warrants and securities, according to a recently regulatory filing . Domain Associates led a $30 million Series A funding round in 2008, and Domain partner Eckard Weber is identified as CEO in the filing. Other investors include Alta Partners, Scale Venture Partners, AgeChem Venture Fund, and MC Life Science Ventures. —Eclipse Therapeutics, a biotech developing drugs that target cancer stem cells, has raised nearly $2.8 million of a planned $3 million in debt, warrants, and securities, according to a recent regulatory filing . In March, the company announced the close of $2 million in seed funding led by its founding investor, City Hill Ventures, and the filing indicates that the new funding is an extension of that deal. City Hill Ventures’ founding partner, Jonathan Lim, was named as the executive chairman in March. He was previously the CEO of San Diego-based Halozyme Therapeutics. Another recent filing shows Lim as the founder and funder of another San Diego startup, NextDx, which recently raised $250,000 of a planned $500,000 in  funding. —Naviscan, a San Diego startup developing organ-specific imaging technology that uses Positron Emission Tomography (PET) scanners, has expanded funding of a planned $363,000 round disclosed last month . Since then, Naviscan has raised a total of $830,000 of a planned $2.2 million financing that includes debt, warrants, and securities, according to a regulatory filing .