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

A preview of the emerging health care companies profiled in the current issue of Start-Up. This month's profile group: Do-It-Yourself Dermatology, features profiles of Therative and Xthetix. Plus these Start-Ups Across Health Care: iCardiac Technologies, Jenken Biosciences, Neovasc Medical, and Syntaxin.

As venture capitalists begin counting cosmetics and aesthetics companies as part of their portfolios, they're also migrating toward investing in consumer-oriented companies including those that make aesthetic devices to be used in the home.

With one look at the technology and some research into the acne market, Therative came to a quick contrarian conclusion: to sell its acne treatment device directly to the 45 million Americans who need it, not to the thousands of dermatologists who treat only 20% of those millions. And so Therative entered the home-use aesthetic market.