Synergy Life Science Partners (Portola Valley, California), a venture capital limited partnership focused on investments in emerging medical device technologies, reported the completion of fundraising for its debut fund with $143 million in committed capital.

The firm said it has closed on six investments to date.

Tracy Pappas, CFO of Synergy, told Medical Device Daily that the firm’s goal is to invest the money in large therapeutic areas, primarily cardiovascular disease, orthopedic and spinal diseases and injuries, metabolic disorders such as diabetes and obesity, neuron-mediated disorders, oncology and ophthalmic conditions.

Founded in 2006 by John Onopchenko; Richard Stack, MD; and William Starling, Synergy invests directly in private, early-stage device firms or emerging companies that are developing disruptive technologies to address unmet or under-served human healthcare needs.

“We’re excited about our fundraising accomplishments and our early portfolio,” said Onopchenko, a managing director of Synergy. “We’ve received a great deal of support from our new limited partners, who share our vision for building and accelerating the delivery of innovative medical products. Our goal is to help dramatically improve the standard of patient care in our therapeutic categories, while generating exceptional returns to the customers of and investors in our portfolio companies.”

Tracy Harris, director for Parish Capital Advisors, said Synergy’s “innovative strategy” for device investing is “an ideal fit for our portfolio.

“We believe the unmatched industry expertise of the managing directors and the fund’s strategy of targeting early-stage companies in large therapeutic areas position Synergy to offer outsized returns for investors,” Harris said.

Synergy said it has the right to invest in companies initiated by Synecor, a medical device incubator co-founded by Stack and Starling.

In other financing activity, Tethys Bioscience (Emeryville, California) reported reaching two milestones in its drive to release Tethys Diabetes PreDx, a multi-biomarker technology intended to provide a more complete picture of an individual’s future risk of developing diabetes.

The company received its latest round of funding, Series C, and also received the licensing of its CLIA lab by the state of California.

According to the company, both moves place Tethys in a strong position to establish itself in the emerging field of personalized predictive medicine and to achieve its goal of helping to stem the burgeoning epidemic of chronic, high-burden metabolic disease. Tethys Diabetes PreDx will be generally available in the first half of 2009, Tethys said.

Intel Capital led the new round of funding.

Tethys said it has raised $54 million in financing to date.

The company also said the licensing of its clinical lab marks a “significant step forward,” enabling Tethys to make its testing services available for sale and to offer test results obtained in Tethys’ own laboratory, where the technology was developed.