Locus Discovery Raises $28 Million in First Close of Series D Equity Financing; Company May Raise up to an Additional $12 Million in a Second Close
BLUE BELL, Pa., Sept. 7 /PRNewswire/ -- Locus Discovery Inc., a new computational drug design biopharmaceutical company, announced today the Company has raised $28 million in the first closing of a Series D equity financing. This third round of financing was led by Wanger Asset Management (Acorn Funds), and brings the total funds raised since the Company's founding in September 1999 to $76 million. The Company has the option to raise up to an additional $12 million in a second closing that would bring the total Series D round to $40 million.
ING Furman Selz is another new investor in this financing round. Institutions from the previous financing investing in this round include Delphi Ventures, INVESCO Global Health Sciences Fund, Cooper Hill Partners, Origin Capital, Amerindo Investment Advisers, Johnson & Johnson Development Corporation, Prism Venture Partners, Tredegar Investments, and ReqMed Company.
``We are pleased to have this level of interest from the financial community. We plan to undertake chemistry and biology efforts in 20 new drug discovery programs by mid-2002. This funding will allow Locus to pursue these programs as well as continue developing our core computational drug design technology, which we see dramatically changing the traditional drug-discovery paradigm. Locus received a significant increase in valuation from our last financing, which we believe is a strong show of confidence in the current difficult financing environment. We appreciate the support from our investors, and look forward to working with them in continuing to build Locus Discovery,'' commented Nicholas Landekic, President and Chief Executive Officer of Locus Discovery.
Locus Discovery's computational technology is a proprietary means of first rapidly and accurately identifying the biologically relevant active binding site of a protein, and then designing small molecule antagonists or agonists of the protein's activity. The technology utilizes proprietary computational procedures and requires knowledge only of the structure of a protein. Unlike traditional research approaches, the Locus Discovery process represents the ability to compress into a few weeks what previously took several years in the drug discovery process, enabling the identification of small molecule drugs substantially faster, with a much higher success rate, and on a much larger scale than has previously been possible.
Locus Discovery was organized in September 1999, and is based on technology exclusively licensed from Sarnoff Corporation. The Locus Discovery technology can be used to design therapeutic compounds for many thousands of known protein targets, as well as thousands of new protein targets being identified through genomic research. Some of Locus Discovery's drug design programs include small molecule mimetics of erythropoetin, anti-viral compounds based on a novel target called GP41, and other programs in cancer, infectious diseases, asthma, and neurological and other disorders... |
