Ardian Inc. is a startup based in Mountain View, California. Yet its technology, a catheter-based treatment for hypertension, was created by Minnesota entrepreneurs, funded by a Minnesota venture capital firm, tested by a Minnesota hospital, and recently bought by a Minnesota medical device company for at least $800 million. Are you as disturbed about this as I am?

Medtronic Inc. hasn’t had much luck of late with orthopedics, particularly its spine business. But if Tornier Inc.’s planned $205 million initial public offering comes to fruition, the country’s largest medical device maker is looking at a huge pay day.The Bakken Research Center (BRC) in Maastricht, Netherlands, home to Medtronic’s R&D operations in Europe, owns [...]

Tornier Inc. is planning to test the choppy waters of Wall Street with an estimated $205 million initial public offering, according to documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.The orthopedics firm in Edina, Minn., which specializes in devices to treat injuries to extremities and small bones, is the third local medical device company in [...]

Venture capitalists may be stingy these days but it seems what little money they’re willing to spend is going toward Anulex Technologies Inc. in Minnetonka, Minn.The company said Thursday that it raised $18 million in a Series E financing round. And Anulex still plans to raise at least $2 million more, said CFO David Noel.That [...]

If patience is a virtue, then Minnesota venture capitalists have become downright saintly.Faced with a weak economy that has stifled initial public offerings and mergers and acquisitions, local investors are still looking for exits well after the funds have closed. Throw in tougher regulatory scrutiny for medical devices and drugs and an exit can suddenly [...]

Excelen, a nonprofit orthopedic research and education foundation, will raise $12 million over three years to establish a downtown Minneapolis incubator and early-stage seed fund to back promising orthopedic start-ups.The incubator will be located at Excelen’s headquarters near Hennepin County Medical Center and the Metrodome, where it already operates laboratories and research facilities. Prominent orthopedic [...]

Tenex Health Inc. has raised $1.275 million from the sale of equity, according to documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.The Rochester-based biotech start-up, which is seeking $2 million, is developing treatments for sports-related injuries like tendinitis.Founder and CEO Jagi Gill did not return a phone call seeking comment.var page_count = “off”; [...]

NovoLogix Inc. is not the easiest company to understand. But it does have a colorful past and an intriguing future.Once a $400 million force in the home-health care market, the former Ancillary Care Management has remade itself into a software-as-a-service company that focuses on helping payers manage claims relating to fast growing demand for expensive [...]

Affinity’s fund is not tied to a specific incubator, which means the firm will cast a larger net for start-ups. Given its history of investing exclusively in late stage companies, Affinity’s move could provide Minnesota’s early stage entrepreneurs a real shot in the arm.

“We’re not here to bash the FDA,” Mark DuVal, president of Minneapolis law firm DuVal & Associates, told a group of medical device executives and investors late Wednesday afternoon.Too late.The newly formed Minnesota Medical Device Alliance billed the gathering in the downtown Warehouse District as the first step to help save the Food and [...]