Antibody drug maker Igenica, with Dave Goeddel at the helm, raises $33 million

In its third round of venture funding, Igenica Inc. raised $33 million.

The Burlingame business, run by former Genentech Inc. scientist David Goeddel, seeks to develop antibody-based cancer medicines. It has raised $55 million total since it started in early 2009.

Third Rock Ventures, a new investor, led this round, while the Column Group, Orbimed Advisors and 5AM Ventures also gave money. Carl Gordon of Orbimed and John Diekman of 5AM Ventures work on Igenica's board of directors.

You're so vain: Baby boomers, tech and lower risk for investors pump up aesthetics, vanity market

Kerry Pope wants to liberate women — and make some money in the process.
Pope’s Palo Alto company, Viveve Inc., is launching a product that promises to tighten vaginal tissue stretched by childbirth and return women’s sex lives to pre-child days. The half-hour radiofrequency technology procedure, already used to tighten saggy facial skin, allows women to return home or to work with nary anyone else the wiser for it.
“It’s all about her,” Pope said.
It also is about opportunity.
Vain baby boomers looking to suck, heat, squeeze or freeze their way toward the fountain of youth are pumping up a $10 billion-a-year market. Lower regulatory risk for companies and investors, a new wave of technologies and consumers willing to pay out of pocket are fattening up the industry as well.
Call it the aesthetics, personal care or vanity market, but one thing is sure: Even in a tough economy, a cadre of Bay Area companies with science-backed, minimally invasive methods for smoothing wrinkles, removing love handles or even restoring couples’ sex lives are tapping consumer lust for younger days.

Startup Cleave Biosciences raises $42M to develop cancer drugs

Cancer survivor, surfer and longtime biotech executive Laura Shawver is back in the Bay Area, with a startup round of $42 million to develop cancer-fighting drugs that restore the balance of proteins in cells.
Shawver’s new company — Cleave Biosciences of Burlingame — raised the money from U.S. Venture Partners, 5AM Ventures, Clarus Ventures, OrbiMed Advisors and Astellas Venture Management LLC, the corporate venture arm of Japan’s Astellas Pharma, it said Tuesday.
With one of the largest drug-development startup hauls this year, Cleave will use the cash to discover and develop “multiple” small-molecule drugs that restore protein homeostasis, or the balance of proteins in cells. The pathways used in those processes, helping normal cells make proteins or dispose of unneeded proteins, can be hijacked by cancer cells.