Forbes India has a profile of Opto Circuits, probably the only pure play listed medical devices company in the country. The company's stock incidentally has appreciated 10 times since January 2005.Until now, Ramnani has made his living, mostly by selling “non-invasive” medical devices like electronic patient monitors and medical sensors. But it is Opto’s “invasive” product line, stuff like stents

Economic Times has an article on how Indian medical devices companies have started to make a mark on the global market.The US produces half of the world's medical devices and consumes approximately 40 % of the world's output. Indian manufacturers have leveraged their cost advantage to offer world-class quality at affordable prices. Opto, for instance, makes most of its monitors and sensors at its

TODAY’S HEADLINES:

• Paris-based Stentys takes $18M for “bifurcated” stents (release)
• Cancer-test biotech Calderome changes name to VeraCyte (VentureWire)
• Predictive Biosciences names Peter Klemm as CEO (release)

Paris-based Stentys takes $18M for “bifurcated” stents – Stentys, a Paris-based medical device maker, raised $18 million in a second funding round. The company is developing “bifurcated” stents intended to prop open clogged arteries at blood-vessel junctions.

The startup said the funding will allow it to complete clinical trials of its stents and to win European regulatory approval for them. Stentys doesn’t seem to have given any indication whether or when it might seek approval in the U.S. or other markets as well.

Scottish Equity Partners and Sofinnova Partners provided the funding.

Cancer-test biotech Calderome changes name to VeraCyte – Calderome, a stealthy cancer-test startup in South San Francisco, has changed its name to VeraCyte (no Web site), VentureWire reports. The new name presumably reflects the company’s focus on cell-based cancer diagnostics, as we described last week.

The VentureWire story goes on to reprise VeraCyte’s $12 million fundraising, which we also covered last week. VeraCyte has two employees, and recently extended job offers to three other individuals, the news service reported.

TODAY’S HEADLINES:

• Luminous Medical raises $24M for automated glucose monitoring (release)
• Axial Biotech takes in $6M for spinal diagnostics (release)
• Insulin bioengineer enGene receives $6.4M (release)
• Cell imager Amnis pulls in $3.5M (VentureWire)
• Korea Bone Bank gets funding for bone transplants (release)

Luminous Medical raises $24M for automated glucose monitoring – Carlsbad, Calif.-based Luminous Medical, a medical-device maker, raised $23.5 million in a second funding round. Investors included Adams Street Partners, RiverVest Venture Partners, Finistere Ventures, De Novo Ventures and Latterell Venture Partners.

Luminous is developing an automated blood-sugar sensor for diabetic patients being treated in hospital intensive-care units and operating rooms. According to the company, keeping a tight rein on blood-glucose levels, which can soar or crash unexpectedly in diabetics, helps prevent complications while shortening hospital stays and reducing the risk of death.

Measuring such tight control, however, typically requires manually checking blood-glucose levels every 30 to 60 minutes, the company says. The Luminous device, by contrast, uses infrared spectroscopy — a technique that identifies particular molecules by measuring which wavelengths of light they absorb — to measure glucose and other blood chemicals non-invasively.

The company licensed its technology from InLight Solutions of Albuquerque, N.M., which previously invested $60 million in the technology. The device has not been approved by the FDA.

Chestnut Medical Technologies, a Menlo Park, Calif., medical-device maker, raised $7.8 million against an anticipated $10 million third funding round, I’ve learned. An SEC document (PDF link) the company filed with the California Department of Corporations disclosed the funding.

Chestnut makes a device best described as a medical version of a plumber’s snake. Its Alligator retrieval device, which the FDA approved in 2005, is designed to remove “foreign bodies” such as blood clots from vessels in the body and brain via a clamp that’s inserted via catheter into a patient’s circulatory system. The company offers a flash demo of the device.

Investors in the round so far include Veron International of Hong Kong, ITX International Equity, Japan Asia Investment of Tokyo and individual investors.

Miramar Labs (no Web site), a Menlo Park, Calif., medical-device maker, raised $20.3 million in a second funding round, I’ve learned. There isn’t a huge amount of public information about the company, although it appears that the company is working on electromechanical devices of some sort for “aesthetic indications” — cosmetic surgery, in short.

Investors in the round included Split Rock Partners, Morgenthaler Partners and Domain Partners.

Nellix Endovascular, a Palo Alto, Calif., medical-device maker, raised $6.5 million in a third funding round, I’ve learned. The startup is developing a new treatment for repairing blood-vessel flaws in the chest and abdomen.

Those flaws, known as aneurysms, are thin-walled “bubbles” in blood vessels that can rupture on short notice, often fatally. The Nellix device and treatment apparently injects some form of goop into these aneurysms, filling and sealing them in order to prevent rupture.

Investors in the round included Essex Woodlands Health Ventures and Incept.

Cameron Health, a San Clemente, Calif., medical-device maker, has raised $14.1 million of a planned $50 million fifth funding round, I’ve learned. The company is working on a new type of implantable defibrillator that’s designed to be easier to implant and program than existing models.

Implantable defibrillators administer shocks to the hearts of people who are at risk of cardiac arrest — a critical condition in which the heart simply stops beating. When the device senses a heart-rhythm disturbance, it shocks the heart back into action. A cardiologist at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics describes the device in more detail.

Existing defibrillators must be implanted in an invasive procedure that requires a specialist — often an electrophysiologist — to guide lead wires into the heart through the veins. In addition to being challenging to insert, those leads can sometimes break, in rare occasions delivering fatal shocks to the heart.

Cameron’s simpler defibrillator apparently doesn’t require such leads, making it easier to implant — although exactly how it accomplishes that trick isn’t immediately clear. The trade publication In Vivo took a closer look at Cameron back in 2003, although the portion of its article available on the Web doesn’t explain how the Cameron device functions without leads.

Investors in the round so far include Three Arch Capital, Versant Ventures, Sorrento Ventures and Delphi Ventures. Cameron CEO Jay Warren didn’t return multiple phone calls and emails requesting comment; neither did VC investors at Three Arch or Versant.

TODAY’S HEADLINES:

• Aperio Tech raises $20M for digital pathology (release)

Aperio Tech raises $20M for digital pathology – Aperio Technologies, a Vista, Calif., developer of systems for digitizing and analyzing medical images, raised $20 million in a third funding round. With the new investment, Aperio has now raised a total of $53 million, including $11 million it pulled in from existing investors last May.

Investors in the latest round included HLM Venture Partners, Galen Partners, Advanced Technology Ventures, Acadia Woods Partners and BlackRock Alternative Advisors. The startup’s tools allow pathologists to scan microscope slides of biopsied tissue or other biomedical samples at high resolution, then view and analyze them for signs of disease.

Over the past six months, Aperio’s tools have received FDA approval for use in manual and automated analysis of tumor-biopsy samples intended to determine whether a patient should receive the breast cancer drug Herceptin.

TODAY’S HEADLINES:

• Precision Thera merger with “blank check” Oracle Healthcare collapses (release)
• Sleep Solutions takes in $21M for sleep-apnea diagnostics (release)
• Trevena takes in $24M for drugs targeting G-proteins (release)
• “Specialty biotech” PanGenetics gets €23M for antibody drugs (release)
• Cancer-drug maker Unibioscreen pulls in €5M (release)
• Danish contract manufacturer CMC Biologics raises new funding (PDF release)
• Healthcare investor EDF Ventures postpones fourth fund (VentureWire)
• Global TB-drug alliance names former Sanofi-Aventis exec Jerome Premmeurer as CEO (release)
• Liquidia Tech names Neal Fowler as CEO (release)

(NOTE: Sorry for the minimal posting yesterday — I was at the Health 2.0 conference with extremely limited Internet connectivity. Normal posting resumes today.)

Precision Thera merger with “blank check” Oracle Healthcare collapses – This item is now a standalone post here.

Sleep Solutions takes in $21M for sleep-apnea diagnostics – Sleep Solutions, a Pasadena, Md., developer of diagnostic devices for sleep apnea, raised $20.5 million in a new funding round. Investors included TPG Biotechnology, MedVenture Associates, Emergent Ventures and Lava Ventures.

Sleep Solutions has developed a home-use diagnostic device for identifying sleep apnea, which are breathing difficulties during sleep. Diagnosing apnea has traditionally required patients to spend the night in a sleep laboratory. Left untreated, apnea can increase the risk of more serious problems, including stroke and heart attack.

Trevena takes in $24M for drugs targeting G-proteins – Trevena (no Web site), a Berwyn, Penn., biotech focused on a new area of drug discovery, raised $24 million in a first funding round. Investors included Alta Partners, Healthcare Ventures, New Enterprise Associates and Polaris Venture Partners.

Like many biotechs, Trevena plans to develop drugs that attack a particular biological mechanism rather than any particular disease. In this case, the company is targeting a class of proteins known as G-protein coupled receptors, or GPCR, which according to the company are affected by close to 40 percent of all drugs on the market today. The company didn’t describe its plans in any detail.

Healthcare investor EDF Ventures postpones fourth fund – EDF Ventures, an Ann Arbor, Mich., VC firm specializing in early-stage healthcare, has delayed a planned fourth fund, VentureWire reports. The postponement is related to the departure last year of managing director Beau Lasky, who left for Steamboat Ventures.

The firm intends to begin talking to potential investors again in several months. EDF didn’t say how much it hopes to raise in the new fund; its third fund closed in 2005 with $55 million in commitments.