Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Biotech / Medical : Caliper Technologies - CALP -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: nigel bates who wrote (81)	12/17/2002 10:09:27 AM
From: nigel bates	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 114

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C., Dec. 17 /PRNewswire/ -- Amphora Discovery, a privately held biopharmaceutical company, today announced that it had successfully raised a $23 million Series B financing. The financing was co- led by existing investors ARCH Venture Partners, MPM Capital, Venrock Associates, CW Group and Versant Ventures. These funds will be used to expand and commercialize Amphora's Multi- Dimensional Drug Discovery products. Amphora uses a highly purified library, state-of-the-art microfluidic assay technology, and proprietary data analysis software to consistently and precisely measure chemical activity across related target groups and disease pathways. The unprecedented sensitivity and precision of the data allow chemists to design Structure Activity Relationship (SAR) models and tune compound selectivity directly. As a result, Amphora quickly generates selective drug-like molecules for important therapeutic targets. "The Amphora multi-dimensional system has generated exciting results as well as strong interest from pharmaceutical companies," said Martin Haslanger, President and CEO of Amphora Discovery. "We are pursuing target classes of significant clinical interest, such as kinases, phosphatases and ion channels. Initial results demonstrate our ability to quickly generate lead structures that create promising opportunities for both internal development and partnering. This funding will allow us to aggressively pursue them. The quality of Amphora's data has been borne out by the successful hit expansions around initial active scaffolds to produce more potent and selective compounds. We are particularly excited about the exceptional data quality that will allow our partners to use chemistry resources more effectively and get to better drugs faster." Michael Steinmetz, Ph D, a General Partner at MPM Capital added, "Amphora has made enormous strides in developing their technologies into an industrialized small molecule drug discovery process. We believe that the Amphora Discovery System will be of great value to their partners in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries and to Amphora's internal projects. Amphora's ability to raise such a substantial amount of capital in the current financing environment is a testament to the professional leadership of the management team and their commitment to make drug discovery faster and better." About Amphora Discovery: Amphora Discovery was formed in September 2001 to exploit opportunities in chemical genomics. By applying high precision screening across biological systems and surrogate therapeutic suitability assays, Amphora is able to efficiently deliver high quality drug candidates. The senior management has over 50 years of experience in drug discovery including developing world-class lead generation operations. Amphora is headquartered in Research Triangle Park, NC with additional facilities in Mountain View, CA. For more information, please visit www.amphoracorp.com.