• Bellicum Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Houston, announced $4.5 million Series A and convertible note funding. The new funds will be used to complete the company's ongoing Phase I/IIa trial of BP-GMAX-CD1 in patients with advanced, androgen independent prostate cancer, and to prepare for Phase IIb trials. The company anticipates reporting initial results of the Phase I/IIa trial in mid-2010. The new funding brings the total raised to date to $8.5 million.

• Metabolon Inc., of Research Triangle Park, N.C., has closed an additional $6 million in its Series C funding round. That brings the total funding raised in the round to $12.3 million. Syngenta Ventures and Fletcher Spaght Ventures were new investors joining Sevin Rosen Funds, Aurora Funds, Harris and Harris Group, Fulcrum Financial Partners and Alexandria Equities. As a part of the financing, Carol Marino from Syngenta Ventures and Guy Fish from Fletcher Spaght will join Metabolon's board.

• Mission Bay Capital LLC, of San Francisco, a seed-stage venture capital firm focused on investments in bioscience companies emerging from the California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences and University of California, announced its first venture fund. The $7.5 million Mission Bay Capital Fund will be invested in breakthrough companies whose founders or technologies are associated with the University of California system.