Allergan Inc., the Irvine-based global specialty pharmaceutical company announced on Thursday that the Food and Drug Administration has approved its Ozurdex, an eye implant treatment for retinal disease called macular edema.

Macular edema is an eye disease where macula, a part of the retina located at the back of the eye swells and thickens owing to leaking or accumulating fluid from retinal veins into the macula. When the macula thickens, it may cause impaired vision and if swelling is caused by retinal vein leakage over long period of time, it may even result in permanent visual loss. Patients with diabetes are more likely to develop macular edema.

Ozurdex is an injectable, biodegradable polymer implant that releases the cortical steroid dexamethasone into the retina when placed in the back of a patient’s eye. Dexamethasone is an anti-inflammatory drug that treats the edema and improves vision. Ozurdex becomes available to doctors and patients in the third quarter of this year, said Allergan.

William Randolph Hearst III, Adobe Ventures and other investors have agreed to a $4 million venture capital funding for FORA.tv. According to Beet.TV , FORA.tv that is an online distributor of intellectual videos has been able to close this venture capital funding via a Series A round. Its online videos include numerous public speeches and delivers highly intellectual content through partnerships with Aspen Institute, the Commonwealth Club, the Council on Foreign Relations and many more prestigious institutions.

In October 2007, FORA.tv had been able to close a $2 million venture capital funding deal from interested investors such as William Hearst and Adobe. FORA.tv is a San Francisco based company that specializes in display of online video content from highly respectable think tanks, universities and well-known speakers. These videos are assorted categorically and are easily available as they are arranged topic wise. The site also offers tools for personalization for user choices. As William Randolph Hearst III, who is a private investor said, "FORA’s financing is a vote of confidence for the company. It will make it possible to aggregate much more public commentary from all points of the spectrum. FORA’s new 2.0 release software adds features that let sponsors add their own searchable content to the video archive. It’s very cool."

According to FORA.tv CEO (Chief Executive Officer) Brian Guber, the capital received from the venture capital funding would be diverted towards the expansion of website’s content and audience variables. As of now FORA’s website traffic statistics cannot be downgraded nor can they be termed as highly impressive. However, the growing popularity of the site and the fact that most of its audience is from the intellectual community, compels major companies to get in sponsorship contracts with FORA.tv, in an effort to enhance their visibility. At present, FORA’s sponsors include Pfizer and Chevron.

Some of the current big names in the intellectual online video distribution market are TED Talks, BigThink which is a recent addition to this community is still showing a lot of prospect for growth.

However, with the acquisition of such an impressive funding, all eyes for the time being are on FORA.tv and everyone is anxious to see what new additions does FORA make to its website and to its content.

DataGrant Venture Capital News is launching a new forum for venture capital and Angel investors. This is an open educational symposium to share and discuss the issues and challenges for both investors and entrepreneurs. To participate visit DataGrant Venture Capital News Forum and register. If you wish to be updated use the subscribe buttons to allow the RSS feed to notify you when a new topic is posted. Of course we want to know what you have to say so post your discussion topics and comments.

DataGrant Venture Capital News Forum

DataGrant Venture Capital News