Cerimon Pharmaceuticals rounds up $70M in VC

South San Francisco-based Cerimon Pharmaceuticals has raised a whopping $70 million in its first round of venture capital. CEO Paul Sekhri said that much of the money will go to buying assets. MPM Capital led the round. Cerimon also announced separately today that it has acquired US rights to market and sell two topical formulations of diclofenac, a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug.

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ALSO: ForteBio of Menlo Park, CA, has raised $17.3 million in its second round of venture capital. The Vertical Group led the round. ForteBio is preparing for a fourth-quarter 2005 launch of its first product platform, Octet, an integrated system for the quantitation and kinetic analysis of biomolecules. Release