Nanotech Ventures Get New Owners

To focus on its nanomedicine start-ups, Arrowhead Research has sold Unidym, its carbon nanotube technology subsidiary, to Wisepower, a South Korean electronics company, for $5 million in stock and up to $140 million in future milestone payments. Unidym shareholders, which include many universities that licensed patents to the company, will receive 40% of licensing revenues for certain patents. In 2007, Unidym merged with Carbon Nanotechnologies, a Houston company founded by the late Nobel Laureate Richard Smalley. In another deal, Arkansas-based NanoMech has acquired Canadian Nano Technologies (Canano). NanoMech will use Canano’s metal nanoparticles in its nanoengineered additives, coatings, and coating deposition systems.