Venrock gets lean and mean with $350M venture fund

Smaller and more tightly focused will be the dominant style for Venrock Associates' new venture fund. The venture group--a busy player in the biotech space--says that it closed its new healthcare fund with $350 million--a sharp drop from the $600 million it was able to gather for its last fund launched in 2007. "We were proactive on the size of the new fund," Bryan Roberts, a Venrock partner, told the Wall Street Journal. "It fell out of who we had (at the firm). If we could find great people...

Aveo gets $5M payment from Biogen Idec

AVEO Pharmaceuticals has received a $5 million milestone payment from Biogen Idec, triggered by Biogen's selection of the first humanized antibody development candidate from its ErbB3 program. In March 2009, Biogen and Aveo signed a deal for the development and commercialization of AVEO's discovery-stage ErbB3-targeted antibodies for cancer and other diseases outside. Aveo retained full control of the program in North America....