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Elcelyx Therapeutics of San Diego has raised $1.2 million of a planned $2.2 million equity offering, according to an SEC filing. The document says the companys president is Alain D. Baron, entrepreneur in residence at Morgenthaler Ventures in Menlo Park. Morgenthaler partner Ralph Chris Christofferson is an Elcelyx board member, according to the filing.

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Regulatory news dominated the headlines in the past week. We have it summarized for you here.

Sequenom (NASDAQ: SQMN) said a lack of adequate controls, protocols and supervision were to blame for the mishandled data that led the company to scrub its launch of a diagnostic test for Down syndrome. Sequenom shares lost 76 percent of their value last April when the company announced that the data needed to support the test had been mishandled.

Tomorrow is the deadline for an FDA decision on Somaxons (NASDAQ: SOMX

San Diego-based EMN8, which develops self-service, touchscreen displays and systems for use in fast-food restaurants, theaters, theme parks, and other retailers, has ordered up more than $14.4 million in venture funding, according to a recent filing with government regulators.

The venture-backed company says it has raised all but $179,550 of a secondary round that began in January and aimed to raise about $14.6 million. EMN8 identifies Sid R...

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A recent Harris poll found that most Americans have never heard of a smart meter and they dont know what the smart grid is, but these new technologies are coming anyway. Weve got a lot of cleantech news, which well dispense as efficiently as possible.

Is Leap Wireless, (NASDAQ: LEAP) optimizing its operations for a possible merger? Or is it trimming its costs in an increasingly competitive market for low-cost service? The San Diego company, which pr...

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Memjet, the San Diego printer technology startup that named former Qualcomm COO Len Lauer as its CEO in January, took a step toward becoming a conventional company by naming Mark W. Legg as chief financial officer, according to a statement issued today. Legg was previously the CFO at privately held General Atomics of San Diego. Lauer is in the process of reorganizing Memjet, which was founded by Australian Kia Silverbrook and did not previo...

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San Diegos Fallbrook Technologies, which is developing a new and more-efficient design for a continuously variable transmission, says today it has signed an agreement with Hodyon of Austin, TX, for joint development of a new air conditioner compressor for medium and heavy-duty vehicles. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed. Fallbrook says its deal with Hodyon is part of its broader effort to develop its technology for ...

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Two San Diego biotechs, Adamis Pharmaceuticals and La Jolla Pharmaceutical, said today they have agreed to terminate their merger agreement, which was signed three months ago. The Nasdaq market also delisted La Jolla Pharmaceutical today, saying the company is operating only as a public shell with minimal assets and operations. La Jolla Pharmaceutical said that after receiving a total of only 13 percent of shareholder proxies, i...

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Thanks to George Zachary, a partner at Charles River Ventures, for sponsoring Venture Hacks this week. If you like this post, check out Georges blog and tweets @georgezachary. – Nivi

In my first post, A brief history of your investors (and their investors), I wrote about the history of venture capital. I described how the economy and stock market drives investments into venture capital and startups. I also covered how the basic incentive structures are affected by these drivers.

I ended with a suggestion t...

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A few weeks ago, GigaOM contributor and veteran entrepreneur Allan Leinwand wrote a post entitled Cisco vs. All Comers. Well lets add Google to that list of all comers. The Financial Times reported today that Cisco is developing a new ultra-high-speed system for internet access in partnership with a number of U.S. service providers, according to people close to the company.

Cisco, it seems, is trying to counter the unease caused by Googles recent announcement that it will build Google Fiber, a fiber-based...

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In a ruling that could have broad implications for video hosting sites that operate in Italy, three Google executives were found guilty of violating privacy laws yesterday for a video that was uploaded to Google Video by one of its users. Although Google has already said it would appeal the decision, the ruling could set a negative precedent if not overturned.

The case centers around a cellphone video of a disabled teenager being bullied by classmates that was uploaded to Google Video in 2006. The EU and I...

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San Diego-based Cadence (NASDAQ: CADX) disclosed two weeks ago that the FDA could not approve the companys pain reliever because of manufacturing problems, but the company didnt provide any details. Now the FDA inspection report on the manufacturing plant has surfacedand the details arent pretty.

The FDA found numerous deficiencies in the production process and discovered that one of three batches of Cadences intravenous acetaminophen was contaminate...

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San Diego-based Anadys Pharmaceuticals reports that its hepatitis C drug appears to get better at wiping out the virus over time, although the company will have some explaining to do about why patients on a placebo appear to be doing almost as well.

Anadys (NASDAQ: ANDS) is announcing today that its lead product candidate, ANA598, when given in combination with standard therapies, was able to eliminate any sign of the liver-damaging virus i...

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Sometimes in biotech you have to root for your biggest competitors to succeed. Thats why yesterday was a very good day for the folks at San Diego-based Ocera Therapeutics.

The big news came out yesterday from suburban Washington D.C., where an FDA advisory panel recommended that regulators approve a new drug from Morrisville, NC-based Salix Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: SLXP). The drug, rifaximin (Xifaxan), is designed to treat hepatic encephalopathy, a condition...

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Synthetic Genomics, the San Diego biofuels developer, today named a top executive from San Diego-based Illumina (NASDAQ: ILMN), the maker of genetic sequencing tools, as its chief operating officer. Joel McComb, a senior vice president and general manager of Illuminas $650 million life sciences business unit, will start March 1 and report to J. Craig Venter, Synthetic Genomics founder and CEO.

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Call it an example of newfound pragmatism among the flat-rate wireless service providers, which are coming under growing pressure to consolidate.

San Diegos Leap Wireless (NASDAQ: LEAP) announced today that its forming a joint venture with San Antonio, TX-based Pocket Communications that will provide pre-paid wireless services to customers of both companies in South Texas. As joint ventures go, however, this one clearly puts Leap in the d...

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San Diego-based Amylin Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: AMLN), along with its partner Takeda Pharmaceuticals, said late Monday that their experimental combination of metreleptin and pramlintide is being primed for final-stage Phase III clinical development for obesity. The decision was made after Amylin and Takeda reviewed data from a full 52 weeks of follow up from patients, which showed the drug consistently helped patients lose weight. Separately, Amylin said...

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ProActa, which is developing an anti-cancer drug transplanted from New Zealand, has raised $1.1 million in debt and securities, according to a recent regulatory filing. The biotech, which has raised at least $43 million in venture funding since 2004, announced earlier this month that it was starting a second mid-stage clinical trial of a drug for Acute Myeloid Leukemia. ProActas investors include Alta Partners, Clarus Ventures, Delphi Ventures, ...

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San Diegos Qualcomm Ventures is showing its confidence in Visage Mobiles back-from-the-dead strategy by leading a new investment round in the San Francisco-based company.

Tim Weingarten, who stepped in as Visage CEO in 2008, tells me the company has secured $4.5 million in its second round venture funding since 2008, when the company sold most of its assets to Convergys on terms that were not disclosed. Visage Mobile basically restarted its ...

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