Monday, October 19, 2009


Amgen Gets Delay On Osteoporosis Treatment
The Food and Drug Adminstration has delayed an approval of Thousand Oaks-based Amgen's osteoporosis denosumab, the firm said Monday, in order to seek more information. According to Amgen, the FDA has requested that the firm include further information on the design of its previously submitted post-marketing surveillance program. Amgen said it will work with the FDA to determine the appropriate next steps regarding the applications. The compound is being targeted at treatment and prevention of po (More info...)
posted on Monday, October 19, 2009(Full story)

Insights and Opinions: How I Got Investors to Write Checks this Year
For our Insights and Opinions section today, we have an article from Wil Schroter, CEO and founder of Santa Monica-based Affordit (www.affordit.com). Wil also founded Go Big Network, an online community for entrepreneurs. He recently landed a round of funding, and shares his experience here: Before you start bitching about investors not writing checks in this economy let me just say this – bullshit. I just finished our capital raise for our new company, Affordit.com and can tell you (More info...)
posted on Monday, October 19, 2009(Full story)

Veredezyne Gets $1.7M Grant
Carlsbad-based Veredezyne--which was formerly known as CODA Genomics--said today that it has received a $1.7M grant from the National Institute of Allergy And Infectious Diseases (NIAID). The firm said the grant, which lasts for 1.5 years, will be focused on developing technology tools for synthetic biology. Verdezyne is venture backed by OVP Venture Partners, Monitor Ventures, Tech Coast Angels and the Life Science Angels.
posted on Monday, October 19, 2009(Full story)

Sendio Hires New VP, Looks To Channel
Newport Beach-based Sendio, a developer of email appliances for blocking spam, said Monday that it has hired two new sales executives, and is now 100 percent focused on channel sales. According to Sendio, it has hired Ron Claypool as its Vice President of Sales, and Susan Gooch as its Channel Sales Manager. Claypool was most recently at Microsoft, where he managed North American Sales and Channel Relationships for its Microsoft Exchanged Hosted Services unit, and was previously at FrontBridge. G (More info...)
posted on Monday, October 19, 2009(Full story)

Be Jane Sold
Burbank-based Be Jane, the angel funded, online home improvement site focused on women, told its users that it has sold the web site to an undisclosed buyer, according to reports. The firm said in a newsletter to users that the buyer was a "perfectly suited partner" in the home industry. Be Jane said it would be announcing the buyer in the weeks ahead. The site had seen some turmoil after the founders of the firm departed, and investors installed their own management last year.
posted on Monday, October 19, 2009(Full story)

Central Desktop Ties Into Intuit
Pasadena-based Central Desktop, a provider of online, software-as-a-service for project management, said today that its product is now available through Intuit's App Center, an online marketplace for Intuit's small business customers. The Intuit App Center is part of Quickbooks Pro and Premier 2010, showing applications which work directly from within QuickBooks. Central Desktop said the deal includes a 15-day free trial of its software for QuickBooks users. Central Desktop provides task managem (More info...)
posted on Monday, October 19, 2009(Full story)

Google, Virgin America Give Away Wi-Fi Access
Air travelers going to and from Los Angeles, Orange County, and San Diego during the holidays are benefiting from a promotion today announced by Google and Virgin America. According to Google, it is partnering with Virgin America to provider free WiFi access on every Virgin America flight between November 10th and January 15th, including all fights out of Los Angeles, Orange County, San Diego, along with other cities. No reason for the free access promotion was given, however Google said it hope (More info...)
posted on Monday, October 19, 2009(Full story)

Nirvanix In Museum Archiving Win
San Diego-based Nirvanix announced this morning that the firm has been selected by the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, as a source for digital archiving of audio, video, and photographs. The firm, which provides cloud storage services, said its services will be used as an offline archive for the information at the museum. The National September 11 Memorial & Museum will be located at the site of the World Trade Center.
posted on Monday, October 19, 2009(Full story)

Dow Jones: Venture Investments Drop To $5.1B In Q3
A report released over the weekend by Dow Jones VentureSource finds that venture capital investments in the U.S. dropped to $5.1 billion in 616 deals, down 38 percent year to year from the $8.2 billion and 663 deals reported in Q3 of last year. The results point to what the VentureSource calls "the worst investment year since 2003." According to the tally of venture capital investments, results were down 6% from Q2. Were there any bright spots? Dow Jones reports that Web 2.0 investments nearly d (More info...)
posted on Monday, October 19, 2009(Full story)

Tubefilter Buys Tilzy.TV
Los Angeles-based TubeFilter, a provider of news and information about the online entertainment industry, said today that it has acquired Tilzy.TV, a provider of web TV entertainment reviews and news. Financial details of the acquisition were not disclosed. Tubefilter said that Tilzy.TV's co-founders will join the firm, and continue to be based in New York.
posted on Monday, October 19, 2009(Full story)

AWR Wins SBIR Grants
El Segundo-based AWR, a developer of EDA software for high frequency semiconductors, reported this morning that it has received three, Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grants. Total value of the SBIR grants was not announced by the firm. According to AWR, two of the grants come from the U.S. Department of Energy, and are focused on RF cavity design and modeling of next-generaiton light sources and particle colliders. The other comes from the U.S. Navy, focused on improving emission/ioni (More info...)
posted on Monday, October 19, 2009(Full story)