Pittsboro-based Biolex Therapeutics has announced the closing of a $60 million Series D round of financing to help the company continue development of its lead drug candidate, Locteron, a controlled-release form of interferon designed to reduce side effects and improve effectiveness in the treatment of hepatitis C.
The venture boost is in addition to more than $113 million in venture and partnership funding throughout Biolex's history -- a history that links to the first North Carolina Biotechnology Center Faculty Recruitment Grant and includes an early $100,000 Biotechnology Center loan to the clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company that now employs 100 people.
Biolex has developed a unique technology for producing human therapeutics through lemna, a common aquatic plant also known as duckweed. The company was founded on technology developed by North Carolina State University scientist Anne-Marie Stomp, Ph.D., who left the firm and returned to the university seven years ago.
The Biotechnology Center provided its first Faculty Recruitment Grant -- nearly $185,000 -- in 1986 to help NCSU bring Stomp to the Raleigh campus to help her broaden her reach in forestry research. But her NCSU research subsequently expanded into the potential uses of duckweed, a plant that grows significantly faster than trees.
Stomp's protein-production technology using duckweed was ultimately licensed to Biolex.
Besides securing the new round of funding, Biolex has also just entered into an agreement with OctoPlus N.V. to buy OctoPlus' 50 percent share of commercial rights to Locteron for an up-front fee of $11 million. Biolex will pay up to $138 million in additional development and sales milestones based on the progression of the product candidate through development and commercialization.. OctoPlus retains a royalty interest in Locteron and will provide manufacturing and process development services to Biolex.
The new Series D financing is led by Clarus Ventures, a leading biotechnology investor, with OrbiMed Advisors participating as a new investor. Existing investors participating in the financing included Intersouth Partners, Quaker BioVentures, Johnson & Johnson Development Corporation, Investor Growth Capital, Polaris Ventures, Mitsui & Company, the Dow Chemical Company, JP Morgan Securities and the North Carolina Economic Development Fund.