And The Nominees for IVB's 2013 Financing of the Year Are ...

We've nominated six 2013 deals for Financing of the Year. It's time for you, esteemed readers of The In Vivo Blog, to decide the winner. From Series A to IPO, from twinkle-in-the-eye science to Phase III drug candidate, we've got it all. Our polls will stay open through the New Year, until Noon ET on Tuesday, January 7. Good luck to the nominees! VOTE BELOW! IF YOU ARE VIEWING VIA EMAIL AND CAN'T SEE THE POLL, CLICK HERE.

Ophthotech's IPO: In a year filled with impressive public market debuts when public market debuts of biotechs were one of *the* top stories, Ophthotech's IPO hauled in $192 million and rightfully sits atop a heap of newly public biotech offerings. And Ophthotech might need every bit of that cash, and maybe more, for an ambitious Phase III program. Read the full nomination here.

Editas' Series A: Polaris, Third Rock, and Flagship more often than not will work in stealth on new potential breakthrough technologies on their own. Not the case with Editas, where the trio have teamed up to turn one of the hottest research tools around into a new wave of therapeutics. One might call it gene therapy, version 2.0: the technology known as CRISPR/Cas9 allows researchers working with cells or model organisms to delete genes or replace them with new ones, but in ways considered more precise than other gene-editing systems currently in use. Read the full nomination here.

Google backs Calico: Just Google, Art Levinson, and a small handful of drug discovery and development luminaries getting together to combat diseases of aging. Anyone else out there planning to 'solve death'? Read the full nomination here.

CHOP backs Spark Therapeutics: Spark sprung nearly fully formed (with a Phase III asset) from CHOP this year, with $50 million in funding. That's enough to carry its lead program to market, a gene therapy for an inherited form of blindness. In doing so it is riding a wave of recent high-profile investment in gene therapy. Read the full nomination here.

Juno Therapeutics' Series A: Juno unites researchers from three different institutions: Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center and the Seattle Children’s Research Institute in Seattle, and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York to pursue multiple avenues of cancer immunotherapy, and its $120 million Series A instantly sets the Seattle-based company up to become a major player in the rapidly evolving sector. Read the full nomination here.

GSK/Avalon Ventures: Pharma needs innovative pipeline candidates. VCs need faster, cheaper and easier exits. The partnership between Avalon Ventures and GlaxoSmithKline aims to accomplish both. The model sees up to $30 million from Avalon and up to $465 million from GSK come together to fund up to 10 new companies, each built around a single drug candidate. Read the full nomination here.