Highlights from the Q2 2010 review of start-up dealmaking: Biopharma, medical device and in vitro diagnostics startups raised a total of $606 million, an 83% hike from the previous quarter but a 30% drop from Q2 2009. Unlike Q1, which saw four spin-offs, Q2 had just one. Three acquisitions closed including J&J's purchase of respiratory-focused RespiVert. During the second quarter of 2010, several companies signed multiple agreements including Clovis Oncology.

The dealmaking column is a survey of recent transactions, including strategic alliances, mergers & acquisitions, and financings, in the life sciences industries. Deals are listed by the following industry sectors: in vitro diagnostics, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, and research/analytical instrumentation and reagents. All transactions are excerpted from Elsevier's Strategic Transactions database, providing comprehensive transaction coverage from 1991 to the present.

A roundup of recent medtech strategic alliances, mergers & acquisitions and financings.

Current treatments for atherosclerosis use markers and therapeutic targets that are consequences of the disease. Aterovax SA is attempting a more direct route. By basing its research and pipeline on sPLA2, a family of secreted phospholipases that are mediators in the inflammatory process involved in atherosclerosis, it hopes to create products that are either predictive of cardiovascular disease rather than simply diagnostic, or that can stop the development of unstable atherosclerotic plaques.