J&J buys into spine test firm
This article was originally published in The Gray Sheet
Executive Summary
Johnson & Johnson leads a $15.3 million financing round and enters a strategic collaboration with Axial Biotech to accelerate the start-up's development of a genetic test to pre-symptomatically predict which cases of scoliosis, or abnormal curvature of the spine, are likely to progress and require intervention, firms announce March 27. Axial hopes to launch the first-of-its-kind test in late 2008, and estimates a U.S. market size of $180 million. The Raynham, Mass. firm also is developing minimally invasive devices for spine surgery...