Biotech Financings Galore…

February 12, 2009 at 4:14 pm EST | Tags:

Here’s a quick roundup of some the latest financings…lots of cool stuff.

HX Diagnostics landed $3.1M in a Series A from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Nanogen and Xiamen YST Biotech. HX Diagnostics is developing rapid point-of-care immunoassays for detecting pandemic and seasonal influenza. The Influenza A/B tests will be able provide rapid, qualitative detection of Type A, Type B antigens from nasal aspirate, nasal swab, throat swab or nasopharyngeal specimens. [VentureBeat]

Alios BioPharma concluded the first closing of its $24M Series A financing. The first tranche of $8.4M has been received and was led by Novo Ventures, Novartis Ventures and the Roche Venture Fund.

Alios is working on small molecule activators of innate immunity antiviral pathways (RNase L activation), phosphate protected nucleotide prodrug chemistry, and glycoprotein-engineering of interferons (Glycoferon). [MSNBC]

ActoGeniX brought in $17M USD from European investors to advance its lead product, AG011, for inflammatory bowel disease. AG011 is currently in a Phase 2 clinical trial in patients with ulcerative colitis. Top-line data expected before mid-2009.

Investors included Biovest (Belgium), Gimv, Biotech Fund Flanders, Baekeland Fund, VIB (Belgium), LSP, Aescap Venture (the Netherlands) and Ventech (France). [FierceBiotech]


Esperance Pharmaceuticals raked in an additional $5M, bringing its Series A total to $14M. The company is using technology licensed from LSU to develop a targeted anticancer fusion protein that is selectively toxic to cancer cells and will use the funding to identify a lead compound, establish an assay to select candidate patients and conduct a proof-of-concept study in humans with cancer.

Investors include the Louisiana Fund I, Themelios Ventures Partners LP and Research Corporation Technologies. [BioSpace]


Diffusion Pharmaceuticals brought in $2.9M last week to advance its lead product trans sodium crocetinate (TSC). TSC is currently in a Phase 1/2 clinical trial in patients with peripheral arterial disease patients and a Phase I trial in patients with high-grade gliomas. [Bio-Medicine]


Divergence Inc. based in St. Louis raised $11.8M to advance its programs of small molecules to treat parasite infestation. The products will address the agricultural nematode control market as well human and animal anti-helminthic disease.

Investors included MidPoint Food and Ag Fund, Prolog Ventures and certain partners of William Blair & Co. [St. Louis Business Journal]

And that’s that…

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