Regional News

FormRouter Raises $1 Million Private Round
Ephinay Nets $10 Million Investment
Salix Pharmaceuticals Completes Private Placement
Aurora's Doug Gooding joins Regado Biosciences as President
Pinpoint, PalmGear Ink Wireless Data Agreement
Art.com Partners with Amazon.com
Ziptronix Announces Distribution Relationship with Japan's Sumitomo
Salix, Inspire and POZEN Added to NASDAQ Biotechnology Index
Entrepreneurs On-Air Challenge Raises Money for WUNC-FM Radio

FormRouter Raises $1 Million Private Round
Cary-based FormRouter (www.formrouter.com) has raised $1 million of private funding from undisclosed friends and family. This round of funding will be used to promote FormRouter's new release, FormRouter.NET, which helps organizations create and host forms online and retrieve responses directly to their desktop databases without any programming.

In addition, the company will utilize these funds to boost its work force, which currently consists of eight employees. FormRouter officials said the money should make the company profitable without seeking additional fund raising.

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Ephinay Nets $10 Million Investment
Charlotte-based Ephinay Corporation (www.ephinay.com) has received a $10 million capital investment from Trinity Ventures to facilitate further growth of Ephinay's financial process outsourcing business. California-based Trinity Ventures, which has over a billion dollars under management, was founded in 1986.

Trinity joins ChrysCapital as one of Ephinay's major investors. Ephinay provides financial process outsourcing solutions to companies using its Optimized Global Service Model - a multi-shore combination with US-based as well as offshore delivery.

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Salix Pharmaceuticals Completes Private Placement
Raleigh-based Salix Pharmaceuticals, Ltd. (www.salix.com) has completed a private placement of 1.7 million shares of common stock. The shares went to select institutional investors, and net proceeds to Salix are approximately $29 million, company officials said.

Salix will use the proceeds from the placement to pursue its strategic objectives, including the development of the products in its pipeline and the in-licensing/acquisition of additional products. Salix develops and markets prescription pharmaceutical products for the treatment of gastrointestinal diseases.

Salix Pharmaceuticals is a CED member.

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Aurora's Doug Gooding joins Regado Biosciences as President
Durham-based The Aurora Funds (www.aurorafunds.com) announced that the firm's Doug Gooding will become the President of Regado Biosciences, an early stage biopharmaceutical company and Aurora portfolio company. Durham-based Regado is focused on the discovery, development and commercialization of antidote-controlled therapeutics. As part of this transition, Gooding will become a Venture Partner with Aurora.

Since joining Aurora in April 2001, Gooding has worked primarily with Aurora's life science portfolio, specifically in the areas of biotechnology, agriculture and biopharmaceuticals. In his new role as Venture Partner, Gooding will continue to be actively involved as a Board member with the companies in which he led investments, including two RTP-based companies, CropSolution and Metabolon, as well as TissueInformatics, a Pittsburgh-based biotechnology company.

The Aurora Funds has been a CED member since 1995.
Regado Biosciences has been a CED member since 2003.

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Pinpoint, PalmGear Ink Wireless Data Agreement
Durham-based Pinpoint Networks, Inc. (www.pinpoint.com), a provider of software and services for managing and delivering content to mobile devices, has partnered with PalmGear (www.palmgear.com). Under the terms of the agreemend, Pinpoint and PalmGear will work to broaden the availability of Palm software to the Palm Powered handheld market.

As part of the agreement, PalmGear will implement Pinpoint's Fuel technology to facilitate Over the Air (OTA) provisioning of Palm applications from the PalmGear.com Web site. This process will allow customers a way to purchase applications directly from their OTA-enabled Palm Powered devices. Pinpoint's Fuel technology will manage the sourcing and delivery of mobile content, enabling content distribution channels and solutions. PalmGear will provide distribution services to the Palm OS developer community.

Pinpoint Networks has been a CED member since 2000.

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Art.com Partners with Amazon.com
Raleigh-based Art.com, an online marketplace for prints, posters, photographs and custom framing, has partnered with Amazon.com, an online retailer of books, electronics and music. The agreement will provide Art.com's collection of over 100,000 posters and prints to be available for purchase at Amazon's Home & Garden store.

The Art.com link on the Amazon website (www.amazon.com/artdotcom) will enable Amazon's 37 million active customer accounts to explore art in a variety of unique ways - by time periods, subjects, popularity, and more. Art.com will fulfill customer orders for its products purchased at Amazon.com, as well as provide customer support.

Art.com has been a CED member since 2001.

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Ziptronix Announces Distribution Relationship with Japan's Sumitomo
Morrisville-based Ziptronix (www.ziptronix.com) has partnered with Sumitomo Corporation and Sumitomo Corporation of America to distribute the company's engineered substrates, MEMS packaging and three-dimensional integrated circuits in Japan.

The agreement was signed with Sumitomo Corporation's Electronic Materials and Equipment Department, and it will allow Ziptronix to utilize its ZiROC® engineered substrate technology in the Japanese market. The ZiROC technology offers improved frequency stability for applications in cell phones, high-frequency wireless Local Area Network devices and other wireless communication devices.

Ziptronix has been a CED member since 2001.

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Salix, Inspire and POZEN Added to NASDAQ Biotechnology Index
Three Research Triangle area biotech companies - Salix Pharmaceuticals, Inspire Pharmaceuticals and POZEN - were incorporated into the NASDAQ Biotechnology Index effective on Nov. 24. Salix (www.salix.com), Inspire (www.inspirepharm.com) and POZEN (www.pozen.com) join Durham-based Trimeris (www.trimeris.com), which was already on the list. NASDAQ's Biotechnology Index includes companies primarily engaged in using biomedical research for the discovery or development of novel treatments or cures for human disease.

All securities in NASDAQ's Biotechnology Index must be listed on the NASDAQ National Market and meet minimum requirements for market value (at least $200 million), average daily share volume (at least 100,000 shares) and listing on a recognized market for at least six months. The Index is ranked on a semi-annual basis in May and November.

Salix, Inspire, POZEN and Trimeris are all long-time CED members.

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Entrepreneurs On-Air Challenge Raises Money for WUNC-FM Radio
CED and WUNC-FM partnered for another successful Entrepreneurs On-Air Challenge in November, raising more than $8,000 during the radio station's fundraising drive. The Challenge is the cornerstone of CED's relationship with WUNC, which also regularly provides on-air mentions about CED and its programs, while heightening visibility for the entrepreneurial community.

Seventeen CED member companies and individuals pledged money during the Entrepreneurs On-Air Challenge. Each dollar pledged was used in a dollar-for-dollar match during WUNC's fundraising drive. The following individuals and companies pledged money during the challenge:

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Events Update

December 8th — Biotech Forum - Breakthrough to Commercialization: From NDA to Product Launch
December 11th — CED Information Session for Prospective Members
December 12th — CFO Roundtable: Benchmarking Benefits - An Interactive CFO Roundtable
December 16th — Capital Connection Luncheon
December 17th — CED Capital Connection Information Session